<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />&ldquo;Trump-Proofing&rdquo; Impacts Hundreds of Companies
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Within the last 10 days or so, a new catchphrase has been making its way through Washington, D.C., and Wall Street.
Near as we can tell, its first appearance was about a month ago. But we daresay it was Paradigm Press macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards who made it a thing.
During a podcast interview on April 24, Jim was describing attempts by the Biden administration to undercut the Trump agenda in the event of a Trump victory come November.
&ldquo;This is Trump-proofing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Against the fact that Trump might win, they will tie his hands in advance.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Less than two weeks later, the term has made its way to the front page of today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5NxTwvpO3dOWi2Ciyyn6X6/76bcb5e6395dc7f8c72da3d9ceaf4e64/WSJ.png" alt="WSJ" width="540px" />
The article describes &ldquo;a behind-the-scenes scramble&rdquo; by senior Biden aides &ldquo;to Trump-proof as many regulations as they can&hellip;
&ldquo;In April, government agencies finalized nearly three dozen economically significant regulations, more than during any single month of Biden&rsquo;s presidency, according to the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. New policy announcements from the White House are being rolled out multiple times each week on issues ranging from tighter environmental rules to new restrictions on noncompete agreements.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Before we go any further, a cautionary note if you&rsquo;re a newer reader. We are not taking a political stance here in Bullet No. 1 by tackling this subject matter. 
Rather, we&rsquo;re talking about a phenomenon that could impact the investment prospects of hundreds of publicly traded companies &mdash; for worse or sometimes for better. All we&rsquo;re doing here today is sussing out cause and effect.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At the heart of the matter is something called the Congressional Review Act of 1996. Without getting too deep in the weeds, this law allows a president to nix regulations issued by his predecessor.
George W. Bush used it once in 2001. No one used it again until Donald Trump used it 16 times in 2017&ndash;18. Joe Biden used it three times in 2021.
To get ahead of the possibility Trump will use it next year, the Biden administration is aiming to cement a host of new regulations into place by the end of this month. Under this 1996 law, acting now rather than later would effectively prevent Trump from undoing those regulations in 2025.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The impact of this month&rsquo;s &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; push cuts across a host of industries. A short list follows&hellip;
Environmental regulations are the most numerous. &ldquo;The EPA issued four separate regulations to cut pollution from coal and new natural-gas-fired power plants,&rdquo; says the Journal. &ldquo;The rules will force utilities to control emissions of carbon dioxide, mercury and other airborne toxic chemicals, wastewater and coal ash stored in ponds&hellip; The EPA also issued new final clean-water regulations.&rdquo;
Meanwhile airlines will be impacted by a new Department of Transportation rule requiring automatic cash refunds to passengers whose flights are cancelled.
Not all these impacts would be negative to companies&rsquo; bottom lines. The health insurance industry stands to benefit from new rules at Health and Human Services allowing up to 100,000 immigrants access to federal health care subsidies.
Granted, the Congressional Review Act of 1996 comes into play only under unusual circumstances. See, a president can undo his predecessor&rsquo;s regulations only with supporting legislation. So as a practical matter, that can happen only if the same party controls the White House and both houses of Congress &mdash; to wit, the Republicans in early 2001 and 2017 and the Democrats in 2021.
Anyway, that&rsquo;s the story. &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; is all over the corporate media this week, but it didn&rsquo;t catch on until Jim Rickards uttered it a few days ago on the Steve Bannon podcast. Just one more way our team aims to stay ahead of the curve.
&ldquo;In just the past few weeks,&rdquo; Jim updated his Strategic Intelligence readers yesterday, &ldquo;Biden has finalized 59 rules and proposed 37 others.&rdquo;
All of the Paradigm editors will be on watch for the impact of these rules on the sectors they cover. Stay tuned.
[Editor&rsquo;s note: In the meantime, Jim is keen to introduce you to a one-of-a-kind investment strategy that helps you capitalize on the stock market&rsquo;s ups and downs. It&rsquo;s proven to generate gains of 52% in 4 days... 85% in 6 days... even up to 188% in 2 days.
And you can put this strategy to work every week. Jim invites you to learn more about this investment blueprint from the hedge fund pro who developed it &mdash; <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2319522">just follow this link to get started</a>.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Social Security&rsquo;s &ldquo;Reprieve&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />According to a new estimate, the Social Security trust fund has more life in it than previously thought: It won&rsquo;t be drained in 2034 after all. It&rsquo;ll be 2035 instead. Hooray?
The new estimate comes from the Social Security program&rsquo;s trustees. The revised outlook comes with the job market holding up better than expected &mdash; thus, more people are paying payroll tax for the time being.
To be clear, 2035 is not the date when the program collapses. But it is the date that all of the program&rsquo;s current surplus will be depleted &mdash; forcing a benefit cut of at least 17%, likely more.
As I&rsquo;ve said for several years now, there&rsquo;s nothing about Social Security that can&rsquo;t be fixed with some combination of higher taxes and a higher retirement age. It would still be a Ponzi scheme in the sense that revenue coming in the door from working-age folks goes out the door instantly to retirement-age folks&hellip; but it would be a sustainable Ponzi scheme for another 50&ndash;75 years.
It says something about the priorities of &ldquo;the uniparty&rdquo; that it can spend $95 billion of money the government doesn&rsquo;t have to help provoke World War III in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan&hellip; but can&rsquo;t come to terms on shoring up Social Security. Oh well.
By the way, the same report says the Medicare trust fund will be drained by 2036. That&rsquo;s an outright fiction: Medicare is already dead-ass broke, with less than half of its revenue coming from payroll tax and premiums paid by beneficiaries. But that&rsquo;s a story for another day&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Assuming you&rsquo;re reliant on the stock market to fund a portion of your retirement, you&rsquo;re marginally better off this morning than you were yesterday.
All the major U.S. indexes are in the green at last check, with the S&amp;P 500 up a quarter of a percent at 5,193.
For perspective, that&rsquo;s about 1.2% below the record close set at the end of March. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t reclaimed the all-time high,&rdquo; colleague Sean Ring writes at <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/rally">today&rsquo;s </a><a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/rally">Rude Awakening</a>, &mdash; &ldquo;but that&rsquo;s when we can get excited. Above 5,255, and we&rsquo;re off to 6,000.&rdquo;
Precious metals continue to consolidate, gold at $2,314 and silver at $27.30. Crude trades at $78.25, the lowest since mid-March. Bitcoin sits a shade below $64,000.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Cost of &ldquo;Clean&rdquo; Electricity
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Folks in Missouri are starting to learn exactly what it will cost to mothball coal-fired electric power plants.
MISO &mdash; the regional grid operator responsible for a large swath of the country stretching from Minnesota south to Louisiana &mdash; recently issued a &ldquo;planning resource auction,&rdquo; spelling out the cost of grid capacity for the year starting June 1.
&ldquo;MISO&rsquo;s auction,&rdquo; according to E&amp;E News, &ldquo;is an indicator of whether there is adequate power supply in specific regions within the grid operator&rsquo;s 15-state footprint. Higher prices are a signal that more capacity is needed.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6NGl8qHAyqkUhNNgUKK1TR/d73976db41f51efe3bfda2a907ef047a/MISOZones.png" alt="MISO Zones" width="540px" />
The headline number is bad enough &mdash; with costs roughly tripling to $30 per megawatt per day next fall and $34.10 in spring 2025.
But that&rsquo;s just the average. In MISO&rsquo;s Zone 5 &mdash; covering a swath of Missouri including St. Louis &mdash; prices will jump from between $10&ndash;15 per megawatt per day to $719.81 &mdash; a 48x increase.
With the retirement of coal-fired power plants, there&rsquo;s just not enough power to serve this area. Thus, supply and demand are doing their thing to price.
Of course, Missouri regulators won&rsquo;t let all of this increase feed through to residential and business customers&hellip; but it&rsquo;s another warning that something&rsquo;s got to give: Coal and nuke plants are being retired&hellip; new solar and wind capacity isn&rsquo;t enough to pick up the slack&hellip; and this is at a time of rising EV usage and AI&rsquo;s insatiable and growing appetite for electricity.
And yes, that affects not only cost but reliability: Later this month the North American Electric Reliability Corporation will issue its &ldquo;Summer Assessment&rdquo; of the U.S. grid&rsquo;s soundness in the event of a big heat wave.
Given the forecasts for &ldquo;above normal&rdquo; temperatures this summer, we&rsquo;re going to watch this one closely. Corporate media will blow off the story, but we&rsquo;ll make sure to bring it your way&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Where Nachos Cost $180&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Seems it&rsquo;s not just the lower and middle classes experiencing food inflation these days&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1h9fFXM5hs2sHziUptDOEr/4b1342bcd73f8967ca1990d28b8d3980/InverseTweet.png" alt="inverse tweet" width="540px" />
Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was the grandstand site for Formula 1&rsquo;s Miami Grand Prix over the weekend.
The concessions were juuuust a little pricey. As The Sun reports, and as several tweets confirm, nachos went for $180&hellip; a fruit platter for $190&hellip; lobster rolls for $280. The cheapest bottle of white wine went for $190.
OK, yes, this was the VIP section. But as one fan joked, &ldquo;Only Travis Kelce can afford this&rdquo; &mdash; and indeed the Kansas City Chiefs tight end was in attendance.
More than one tweet demanded the Federal Reserve raise interest rates to choke off rampant inflation. Yeah, good luck with that&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" /> Mailbag: War Is No Joke
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;You made a joke of the war in Ukraine,&rdquo; a reader writes, &ldquo;but tens of thousands of Ukrainians are suffering and dying, sometimes touched in ways hard to imagine.
&ldquo;Please watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAyykRvPBo">this video</a> about one city that was occupied at the beginning of the war and then tell me, or better yet tell them, they are a laughing matter.
&ldquo;I am a new member of Paradigm but I&rsquo;m disappointed by this publication.&rdquo;
Dave responds: We assume you&rsquo;re writing about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ukraines-mayday">last Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a>, but&hellip; where&rsquo;s the joke?
Perhaps there&rsquo;s irony that Kyiv&rsquo;s bar scene is thriving &mdash; but wars have unpredictable ways of altering the flows of money. You&rsquo;re offended we pointed it out?
No, we find no humor in the fact that Western leaders are content to feed young (and, increasingly, middle-aged and old) Ukrainians into a meat grinder in the name of power politics and &ldquo;weakening&rdquo; Russia (the secretary of defense <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-return-embassy-to-ukraine-boost-military-aid-blinken-and-austin-tell-zelensky-in-visit-to-kyiv-11650859391">said that</a>)... or Washington fighting the war &ldquo;to the last Ukrainian&rdquo; (Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war/">said that</a>)... or American leaders viewing the war as &ldquo;a very good bargain&rdquo; for the United States (a State Department official <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/edward_hunt/2023/11/21/the-ukraine-war-has-been-a-great-bargain-for-us-in-the-black-sea/">said that</a>).
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Our mailbag thread on the subject of place names continues to have legs&hellip;
&ldquo;Thought it was pretty ironic that a reader chose to mention the song &lsquo;Istanbul (Not Constantinople)&rsquo; &mdash; since the powers-that-be in that land have apparently *just* figured out that the name &lsquo;Turkey&rsquo; has dubious connotations and therefore the country&rsquo;s official name in English shall henceforth be spelled &lsquo;T&uuml;rkiye&rsquo;&hellip; For real?&nbsp;
&ldquo;I mean, English doesn&rsquo;t even use umlauts! But I suspect the name will still be pronounced as before, regardless of the spelling (heh). Just wondering if The 5 will conform to the new guidelines?&rdquo;
Dave responds: In general, we hew to Associated Press guidelines, and as far as the AP is concerned it&rsquo;s still &ldquo;Turkey.&rdquo; Of course, in the present day and age, one must pick and choose <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/associated-press-stylebook_updated-guidance-on-stylebook-online-now-activity-7184176417041973249-Z9Xi">which guidelines</a> to follow most closely.
There is one usage of umlauts in English &mdash; The New Yorker when it uses words like &ldquo;na&iuml;ve&rdquo; or &ldquo;co&ouml;rdinate&rdquo; &mdash; although the magazine&rsquo;s editors insist it&rsquo;s not an umlaut but rather a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis">diaeresis</a>. Can&rsquo;t wait for them to use &ldquo;re&euml;lection&rdquo; this fall&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

awn-hero-img-03-22-24 Democratic candidate Joe Biden is sharp in the foreground, while Republican candidate Donald Trump is blurred in the background

shutterstock 2401520329

5-bullet-placeholder

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Within the last 10 days or so, a new catchphrase has been making its way through Washington, D.C., and Wall Street.

5 BULLETS: Today’s Issue Is Not About Politics

Today’s Issue Is Not About Politics

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Taking the Sting out of Cancer Diagnosis
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;When I was 20 years old, I got the kind of news that no young person wants to hear&hellip; I had cancer. Hodgkin's lymphoma to be exact,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-technology expert Ray Blanco, opening up about how he got his start in biotech investing and much more.
&ldquo;Back in the 1990s when I was diagnosed, surviving Hodgkin's lymphoma wasn't even a 50/50 proposition. The treatments were grueling and the odds of beating this disease were stacked against you.
&ldquo;The hair loss, the radiation burns, the relentless nausea &mdash; it was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If I'm being honest, there were times I didn't think I'd make it.
&ldquo;Fortunately, advancements in medical technology over the years turned my fate around. The radiation and chemotherapy regimens that were still cutting-edge at the time ultimately saved my life.
&ldquo;I'll never forget how fortunate I was to have access to those breakthrough cancer treatments when I did. If I had been diagnosed just 10 years earlier, before those advancements, I may not be here today.
&ldquo;That life-changing experience sparked my obsession with medical breakthroughs and led me to where I am today &mdash; hunting for the next big investment opportunities in health care technology.
&ldquo;And I've never been more excited than I am right now&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;A brand-new technology is emerging out of Silicon Valley that is poised to revolutionize how we treat cancer and so many other diseases,&rdquo; Ray says. &ldquo;I'm talking about artificial intelligence (AI).
&ldquo;Companies are now using advanced forms of AI to discover and develop entirely new drugs at lightning-fast speed,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This &lsquo;generative AI&rsquo; is able to dream up potential new therapeutic compounds, far faster than any human researcher could.
&ldquo;AI is then used to refine and optimize these computer-generated drug candidates, getting them ready for real-world trials in a fraction of the normal time.
&ldquo;The implications for treating aggressive diseases like cancer are profound,&rdquo; says Ray.
&ldquo;Computer models are able to analyze mountains of data (genetic profiles, scientific studies, patient histories) and find ideal drug targets and candidates that human researchers may have overlooked or given up on.
&ldquo;Already, dozens of drugs discovered and optimized by AI are in clinical trials for all sorts of cancers, rare diseases, autoimmune disorders and more. And the early results look incredibly promising.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Never before have we had a tool as powerful as AI to aid us in humanity&rsquo;s fight against disease,&rdquo; Ray claims. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a game-changer, an inflection point.
&ldquo;Using AI, companies will be able to get new lifesaving drugs into clinical trials at warp speed,&rdquo; he anticipates. &ldquo;The success rates in those trials will soar as AI optimizes trial conditions and targets only those patients predisposed to benefit.
&ldquo;And there's one little AI health care company at the forefront of this revolution that you need to know about today...
&ldquo;This tiny $500 million firm was one of the first to apply advanced AI for drug discovery,&rdquo; says Ray. &ldquo;Its breakthrough software platform is able to take in massive datasets and quickly surface ideal drug targets and candidates.
&ldquo;The AI then takes those candidates through rapid iteration and refinement &mdash; checking for safety, optimizing for efficacy and precision targeting.
&ldquo;Big pharmaceutical giants have already handed this company millions to license access to its AI drug discovery engine. Several early-stage AI-discovered drug candidates are already entering clinical trials for cancers and other diseases.
&ldquo;With a BIG potential payday (in the billions) from future milestone payments and royalties riding on these AI-optimized drugs, this company is truly a speculator's dream,&rdquo; Ray concludes.
[Ray Blanco first recommended Nvidia to his readers when the company traded at just $3.
Anyone who acted on his 2011 recommendation &mdash; and held until today &mdash; made a fortune.
Thirteen years later, Ray recommends a fledgling $6 AI stock &mdash; which might be the smallest AI company we&rsquo;ve ever recommended&hellip; with potential to be bigger than Nvidia.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2319152">Get all the details right here.</a>]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Buffett Pares Apple
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Berkshire Hathaway held its annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, and CEO Warren Buffett (sorta) explained why the company sold 13% of its Apple position in Q1. 
&ldquo;We have sold shares and I would say that at the end of the year I would think it extremely likely that Apple is the largest common stock holding we have,&rdquo; said Buffett during the weekend meeting &mdash; the first such meeting, by the way, since the passing of Berkshire Hathaway&rsquo;s longtime Vice Chairman Charlie Munger in November.
&ldquo;One interesting thing is that Charlie and I looked at common stocks or marketable equities or the things that people love to look at as being businesses, and so when we own a Dairy Queen, or we own whatever it may be, we look at it as a business,&rdquo; Buffett said, doubling-down on his <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2018/09/20/investing-like-a-6-year-old/">homespun persona.</a>
&ldquo;When we own Coca-Cola or American Express or Apple, we look at that as a business.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> So Buffett went on to (sorta) confirm: &ldquo;We will own &mdash; unless something really extraordinary happens &mdash; we will own Apple.&rdquo; 
According to Fox Business: &ldquo;The sale resulted in Berkshire realizing an $11.2 billion after-tax gain in the quarter from its sale of Apple stock and contributed to the rise in the company's cash holdings to a record of $189 billion.
&ldquo;[Buffett] also said that given alternatives in the market and uncertainty around the world, holding a larger cash stake is preferable&rdquo; &mdash; which jibes with recent advice from Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert Jim Rickards.
If Buffett&rsquo;s really looking at Apple&rsquo;s business fundamentals, then perhaps that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s been guiding Berkshire Hathaway&rsquo;s decision to pare its AAPL position. On Friday, we noted Apple&rsquo;s subpar earnings report; nevertheless, AAPL shares lifted 6.3% on the day because the company authorized a $110 billion share buyback.
Which dovetails with comments from Jim Rickards&rsquo; chief analyst Dan Amoss at Paradigm&rsquo;s editorial Slack channel&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;I reiterate my view that it is destructive to shareholder value for Apple to borrow near 5% and buyback shares that have a 2% or 3% free cash flow yield,&rdquo; Dan says.
&ldquo;That is night and day compared with Apple buybacks around 2016 &mdash; when it had more growth potential, it could borrow near zero and its free cash flow yield was near 10%.
&ldquo;Which stocks fit this description today?&rdquo; Dan posits. &ldquo;Refiners like Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) and exploration-and-production stocks like ConocoPhillips (COP).&rdquo; Plus? &ldquo;A lot of non-sexy names, like distributors, steel, homebuilding, oil and gas, gas stations, auto dealers, auto parts retailers and railroads.
&ldquo;These stocks may not be hares,&rdquo; Dan adds, &ldquo;but like tortoises, they may win the race over five&ndash;10 years &mdash; slow and steady.&rdquo;
Looking at AAPL shares today, they&rsquo;re down about 1%... But the three major stock indexes are all in the green this afternoon. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is leading the way, up 0.70% to 16,270. Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 and Dow are up 0.60% and 0.20% respectively.
As for the commodities complex, oil&rsquo;s gained about 0.40% to $78.44 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals are getting some love: Gold is up 1% to $2,333.20 per ounce, but silver&rsquo;s up 3.5%, firmly above $27.
But the crypto market&rsquo;s churning in the red at the time of writing. Flagship crypto Bitcoin is down 0.75% to $63,450 while Ethereum&rsquo;s down 1.70% to $3,000.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Uranium Ban: &ldquo;Bullish&rdquo; for Stocks
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The U.S. relies on Russia to supply uranium for its nuclear industry. It hasn't happened yet, but the Biden administration wants to ban the import of enriched Russian uranium,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s geology-and-mining expert Byron King, adding: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s bullish for uranium stocks.&rdquo;
According to an article at OilPrice.com: &ldquo;Officials from the White House National Security Council, the Department of Energy and other top-level officials have discussed reducing reliance on Russian uranium imports. [The] potential ban could include waivers similar to legislation that quickly passed the House last year.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4GXnTFxNSQpcGCArtqOgU2/abe53e86690d174f92ba8692c1b7b7d0/Uranium.png" alt="Russia's Uranium" width="450px" />

Source: Visual Capitalist
&ldquo;Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States,&rdquo; Visual Capitalist says. &ldquo;In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America&rsquo;s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.&rdquo;
Citing stats from the Congressional Budget Office, a ban on Russian uranium imports could raise costs, at least, 13% or more. Indeed, Jonathan Hinze of nuclear research firm UxC says uranium prices have most likely &ldquo;reached a bottom.&rdquo;
As for stocks, the largest publicly traded uranium company &mdash; Cameco Corp. (CCJ) &mdash; as well as Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) and Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) are all getting a boost from a potential WH ban.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />&ldquo;Biden Bucks&rdquo; (Zimbabwe-style)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;They gave us no warning. We save and save their useless money and overnight the notes are worthless,&rdquo; says frustrated Zimbabwean Sylvia Dhliwayo
To wit: &ldquo;When Reserve Bank Governor John Mushayavhanu gave Zimbabweans three weeks to exchange their bond notes, they lost what little value they had immediately,&rdquo; the BBC says.
We reported last month Zimbabwe&rsquo;s plan to launch its sixth currency in 16 years, replacing &ldquo;its dollar with the ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold,&rdquo; Bloomberg said. &ldquo;The new unit is backed by bullion and foreign currency reserves held at the central bank.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/69YDl9AbWk8yqqKssyZLqR/608383e41ca5ee610a2cd4d3bdee5c90/Zimbabwe-currency2.png" alt="Zimbabwe-currency" width="540px" />

Source: X
&ldquo;Ms. Dhliwayo would use Zigs if there were any to be had,&rdquo; BBC notes, &ldquo;but it mostly exists digitally, and in a place where people can rarely charge their phones because of blackouts, it is cash that counts.&rdquo;
Most business, in fact, is still transacted in USD. Although, due to a shortage of U.S. coins, grocery stores have resorted to giving change in&hellip; lollipops!
So, gee, Zimbabwe has this awesome new gold-backed currency, but no one can use it because it&rsquo;s mainly digital and electricity is unreliable.
No words&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Caleb Williams&rsquo; Tax Arbitrage
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Regarding Caleb Williams&rsquo; Chicago tax burden, couldn't he reside in Hammond, Indiana, and commute just over 20 miles to Chicago for practices and games? As an Indiana resident wouldn't he pay the Indiana rate?&rdquo;
A reader responds to a mid-NFL-draft issue where we noted QB Caleb Williams will spend $538,956 in state and local taxes for every $10 million he earns playing for the Chicago Bears.
&ldquo;The current Indiana state income tax for 2024 is 3.05%, down from 3.15% in 2023. Hammond, Indiana, also has a county income tax of 1.5%

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/43n2K4dMJNgvHC3WSlKV9l/3db9f279ebcf14e82645f981c1e7cf24/Indiana.png" alt="Indiana" width="540px" />

Courtesy: EnviroForensics Hammond, Indiana: Hmm, not exactly a 22-year-old&rsquo;s dream destination&hellip; 
&ldquo;On top of federal and state and local taxes, NFL players have to pay a &lsquo;jock tax&rsquo; in most states and some cities they play in: They pay a portion of each away-game check to the state and sometimes city they play in.
&ldquo;Depending on what team they play for, and what states/cities their away games are in, NFL players can file as many as 10 tax returns and pay as much as 50% of their salaries and bonuses.
&ldquo;If they get injured or cut, they often don't get compensation (unless it's written into their contract). And they&rsquo;re not eligible for unemployment.
&ldquo;The average NFL career is 3.3 years (running backs under 2.6 years) with an average salary of $860,000. So hopefully they paid attention in school, as it's likely they will need that scholarship education.
&ldquo;They ALL ought to get financial advisers (and I would certainly hire an accountant).
&ldquo;Somehow I think that Caleb will be OK. But then again I have seen quite a few Super Bowl rings in hock shops&hellip; I could certainly live and invest handsomely on what Caleb will be paying in state and local taxes!&rdquo;
Emily: You and me both! 
To answer your question, surprisingly, moving to Hammond would only be negligibly better than residing in Chicago.
Nonetheless, we hope the Heisman Trophy winner gets the counsel he deserves. Seeing as Caleb Williams&rsquo; father Carl is his de facto business manager and agent, well, we&rsquo;ve all seen how mixing family and business can end disastrously. Here&rsquo;s hoping it works out for young Williams.
Come on back for another 5 Bullets tomorrow. Until then, take care!
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1886230204

“When I was 20 years old, I got the kind of news that no young person wants to hear,” says Paradigm’s biotech expert Ray Blanco. “I had cancer.” 



5 BULLETS: Hope for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Survivor

Hope for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Survivor

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Zen and the Art of Owning Crypto
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />No one said the road to $140,000 Bitcoin would be straight and narrow.
That figure, as you might already know, is our own crypto evangelist James Altucher&rsquo;s year-end forecast.
For perspective, Bitcoin&rsquo;s all-time high came in mid-March &mdash; just over $73,000. The every-four-years Bitcoin &ldquo;halving&rdquo; came two weeks ago. This morning Bitcoin trades under $62,000.
If previous halvings are any guide, Bitcoin will rally strongly over the next 15&ndash;18 months, and so will the rest of the crypto space. But there will be many thrills-n-chills along the way.
&ldquo;Unless you want to rely 100% on LUCK, you need to have a long-term approach,&rdquo; says James&rsquo; senior crypto analyst Chris Campbell.
And the right long-term approach means you can sleep soundly despite the volatility. &ldquo;If your crypto portfolio is keeping you up at night, then you probably have too much money in crypto,&rdquo; says Chris.
&ldquo;The ideal is when you can forget about it and do other things. Start a garden. Write a book. Learn Russian. Play the piano. Diversify your interests.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />To help you achieve that level of Zen, Chris joins us today to dispel some of the crypto fearmongering you might have encountered in recent days.
Much of that fearmongering surrounds the Securities and Exchange Commission.
&ldquo;The SEC's actions against various crypto entities, such as the lawsuits against Ripple, Grayscale and Coinbase, aren&rsquo;t ideal by any means,&rdquo; Chris allows.
&ldquo;However, it's important to note that the SEC has been losing many of these battles in court. Ripple and Grayscale have already won against the SEC, and based on legal analysis, Coinbase is likely to come out on top as well.&rdquo;
The biggest amount of hand-wringing right now surrounds the applications by several firms to launch an Ethereum ETF, similar to the Bitcoin ETFs that launched in January.
Spoiler alert: The SEC will probably nix these applications when it comes time to decide in three more weeks. That&rsquo;s even though the giant asset manager BlackRock has submitted one of those applications and what BlackRock wants, BlackRock almost always gets. Probably not this time, though.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Perspective: &ldquo;It's important to remember that Ethereum has already reached highs of $4,800 in 2021 without an ETF,&rdquo; says Chris. [It&rsquo;s a little over $3,000 now.] &ldquo;The ETF is a bonus but not essential for Ethereum&rsquo;s rise.&rdquo;
Indeed. Ethereum has a capability Bitcoin does not: It&rsquo;s &ldquo;the leading platform for decentralized applications across finance, gaming and social media,&rdquo; says Chris. &ldquo;In other words, its technology focus provides utility and fundamental demand beyond just speculative value storage.&rdquo;
That too will give a lift to the entire crypto space. But again, that&rsquo;s not an overnight thing. The whole point of getting into crypto is not instant riches &mdash; it&rsquo;s generational wealth.
As James Altucher is keen to point out, &ldquo;Long-term patience will pay off big. My investors who held on when Bitcoin dropped from $10,000 to $5,000 are now sitting on $55,000 in gains.&rdquo;
To be sure, the gains to be had from Bitcoin now won&rsquo;t be as lucrative. That&rsquo;s why James is so keen on a sub-niche of tiny cryptos with truly staggering profit potential.
After the last halving in 2020, coins like these generated gains of 15,416% in the space of just 18 months.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Bad News Is Good News Again
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As was the case for much of the period between the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 COVID lockdowns, bad news is good news for Mr. Market today.
The monthly job numbers are out. The wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured only 175,000 new jobs for April. No one among dozens of Wall Street economists polled by Econoday expected a number that weak.
The mainstream is putting the best spin on the number it can: The official unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. &ldquo;That marks the 27th consecutive month that the unemployment rate was below 4%,&rdquo; says The Washington Post. &ldquo;This was previously recorded during a low-unemployment period between 1967&ndash;1970 and the longest period on record between 1951&ndash;53.&rdquo;
Yes, that&rsquo;s deceptive. Really, it&rsquo;s an apples-to-oranges comparison. What the statisticians count as &ldquo;unemployed&rdquo; today is not what they counted as &ldquo;unemployed&rdquo; in the &rsquo;50s and &rsquo;60s. Nowadays if you&rsquo;re a part-timer looking for full-time work, you&rsquo;re not considered &ldquo;unemployed.&rdquo; And if you&rsquo;re out of work and given up looking, well, that doesn&rsquo;t count as &ldquo;unemployed&rdquo; either.
Economist John Williams of the ShadowStats research firm uses the same methodology the statisticians used up until the 1980s. By his reckoning, the real-world unemployment rate is close to 25%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As far as Mr. Market is concerned, the weak job number suggests that maybe the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates before Election Day after all.
Never mind that one month does not constitute a trend and the Fed will want to see two or three months of weakness before even thinking about changing its tune.
Just the hint of a prospect of a suggestion that lower rates are on the way is enough to propel the major U.S. stock indexes higher today. The Nasdaq is in line to close over 16,000 for the first time in three weeks. The S&amp;P 500 is up nearly 1% and back above 5,100.
Helping the rally is the reaction to Apple&rsquo;s quarterly numbers. They were subpar &mdash; with iPhone sales down 10% and overall sales down nearly everywhere except Europe. But at last check, AAPL is up 6.3% on the day because the company authorized a $110 billion share buyback.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1TU9Q0x2ALdGFBRtHjJuRM/88a98308276537e1178e90a4e973ce73/fmf_tweet_1_don_durrett.png" alt="Tweet" />
But as always, it&rsquo;s not the facts that matter as much as the reaction to the facts. &ldquo;Apple&rsquo;s price action and psychology look exactly like Tesla,&rdquo; says Alan Knuckman &mdash; Paradigm&rsquo;s eyes and ears at the Chicago options exchanges. Recall that Tesla&rsquo;s numbers also stank &mdash; but a few choice words from Elon Musk about more-affordable models propelled TSLA shares 15% higher.
Elsewhere, bonds are also rallying, pushing yields down; the yield on a 10-year Treasury is back to 4.53%, the lowest in three weeks.
Alas, precious metals have been excluded from this easy-money party. Gold is on track for a weekly close below $2,300. Silver sits at $26.33. Crude is adding to its losses this week &mdash; now below $79, the lowest since mid-March.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Fact-checking the IRS
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The IRS is being purposely deceptive about how it plans to ramp up audits&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1GdGX8Fnbxnqmp598g9h5D/be941c0aa4583a1ea9e07ddaf0adf5f6/fmf_tweet_2_marketwatch.png" alt="Tweet" />
Yesterday, IRS chief Danny Werfel laid out specifics about how the agency plans to spend the $80 billion in new funding it got from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
CBS News bought into his spin: &ldquo;The agency will focus on wealthy individuals and large corporations.&rdquo; Audit rates will nearly triple for corporations with assets of more than $250 million. And they&rsquo;ll rise 50% for individuals with income over $10 million.
But to hear Werfel tell it, you&rsquo;re at no greater risk of audit now than you were before if you earn under $400,000. "There is no new wave of audits coming from middle- and low-income [individuals], coming from mom and pops. That's not in our plans.&rdquo;
That depends on how you define &ldquo;wave.&rdquo;
As we&rsquo;ve been pointing out since the law took effect in 2022, the total number of audits is set to grow&hellip; and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen promises only that the share of under-$400k earners would not grow. That means the absolute number of under-$400k earners subject to audit will grow.
Small-business owners and the self-employed are particularly subject to shakedown. They&rsquo;re not W2 employees and thus they can be nailed more easily for inflating deductions and (especially) underreporting income.
As Jim Rickards warned in 2022, the stepped-up enforcement &ldquo;will not primarily audit the rich and large corporations that are already heavily audited and who have the lawyers and accountants needed to fend off IRS attacks,&rdquo; says Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;Instead, these agents will be deployed against small businesses, professionals such as lawyers, doctors and consultants, entrepreneurs who do business as LLCs, farmers and others who may be successful but not super-rich.&rdquo;
You heard it here first&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The War on Cash, Greece Edition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Speaking of independent business owners targeted by the taxman&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/FacSrOQlI4Qf5iwbpyg90/8486847dc4c5d0ba4248bd87851ab6b1/fmf_tweet_3_ft.png" alt="Tweet" />
Effective two days ago, &ldquo;taxis and outdoor market stalls, like other sectors previously dominated by cash, will also have to accept card payments from customers,&rdquo; says a Financial Times dispatch from Greece.
&ldquo;Greece, long regarded as one of the most tolerant countries for tax evaders in the EU, is notorious for the number of undeclared business transactions and the size of its cash economy and had come under intense pressure from Germany and other eurozone partners to tighten its controls.&rdquo;
When the Greek government was on the verge of default in 2015, the authorities imposed strict limits on cash withdrawals. &ldquo;Card usage at the time was as little as 5% of all transactions,&rdquo; says the FT, &ldquo;but soon became the main way to bypass the cash limits &mdash; a development that also boosted tax revenues because card payments leave an electronic record.&rdquo;
As far as getting cabbies on board, the country&rsquo;s finance minister makes it plain: &ldquo;We need everything to be interconnected.&rdquo;
Greek cabbies assimilated by the Borg. Sad.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Nvidia and Funky Place Names
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Some praise followed up by an inquiry to begin today&rsquo;s mailbag&hellip;
&ldquo;I finished reading your publication, and found it quite entertaining,&rdquo; a reader writes after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/dhs-has-plans-for-ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tuesday&rsquo;s edition</a>. &ldquo;Humorous.&rdquo;
What caught her eye was the presence of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Homeland Security&rsquo;s new &ldquo;Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board.&rdquo;
Which reminded her that she&rsquo;s currently in the red on her NVDA holdings: &ldquo;Do I hold them or fold them?&rdquo;
The answer is that NVDA is a buy up to $1,000 per share in Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network. (With such a large, liquid and well-known stock, I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m doing James&rsquo; paid readership a disservice by mentioning that here.)
James issued that recommendation about eight months ago when NVDA was about $470; it&rsquo;s up almost 88% since.
Obviously not everyone who&rsquo;s become a James subscriber since then &mdash; and there are a lot of them &mdash; bought at the same price.
But most of the Paradigm editors include a buy-up-to price with their stock recommendations. They&rsquo;re a useful guide to ensure that you don&rsquo;t overpay relative to the stock&rsquo;s value. NVDA has yet to achieve that $1,000 share price &mdash; so just hold on tight.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Let&rsquo;s wind down the week on a light note with more reader musings about pronunciations and place names.
After I pointed out the existence of places in Illinois pronounced MY-lan, VY-enna and CARE-o&hellip; someone pointed out: &ldquo;You missed &lsquo;Versailles&rsquo; KY, which is pronounced &lsquo;ver-SAILS,&rsquo; and &lsquo;Cadiz.&rsquo; which is pronounced &lsquo;KAY-diz.&rsquo;
&ldquo;Once when entering the U.S. at the Texas border,&rdquo; says another reader, &ldquo;I was asked for my nationality. Recalling that border agents would know nuances of Americana, I responded: &lsquo;Hoosier!&rsquo; which he acknowledged. How else would you pronounce that?
&ldquo;The origin is a bit obscure. Many years ago after one Notre Dame-USC football game in South Bend, an inebriated fighting Irishman spotted a California ear on the field and asked: &ldquo;Whoosh ear?&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The matter of officially approved names,&rdquo; writes our final correspondent, &ldquo;reminded me of a 1980s-era joke&hellip;
<blockquote>An old woman was asked, &lsquo;Where were you born?&rsquo; &lsquo;St. Petersburg.&rsquo; &lsquo;Where did you grow up?&rsquo; &lsquo;Petrograd.&rsquo; &lsquo;Where do you live now?&rsquo; &lsquo;Leningrad.&rsquo; &lsquo;Where would you like to live?&rsquo; &lsquo;St. Petersburg.&rsquo;</blockquote>
&ldquo;The fictitious woman in the joke may have lived long enough to have her wish come true.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Which reminds me&hellip; Way back in the day, the Op-Ed page of the Florida newspaper then called The St. Petersburg Times was regarded as so left-leaning that some folks referred to it as &ldquo;Pravda West&rdquo;!

Young woman meditating with her eyes closed, practicing Yoga with hands in prayer position.  1257250432

shutterstock 1257250432 (1)

No one said the road to $140,000 Bitcoin would be straight and narrow.

5 BULLETS: Stress-Free Crypto

Stress-Free Crypto

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />TikTok Ban &ldquo;Devastating&rdquo; For Small Business
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The impact of the TikTok ban on small online businesses is coming into view&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/16XhRKYImZhfsiXYHr3q4p/110c35ebbc2cb6599f4e4d963608901d/WiredTweet.png" alt="wired tweet" width="540px" />
Maybe you saw the news yesterday: To no one&rsquo;s surprise, TikTok is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2024/05/07/tiktok-sues-us-government/73600217007/">suing</a> to block <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/tiktok-vs-tv">the law</a> that would either ban the app in the United States or force a sale of TikTok&rsquo;s U.S. operations.
The bill was rushed through Congress so quickly this spring that small-business owners scarcely had time to react or get their voices heard.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Now, from across the country, stories abound in local media outlets profiling people who say their livelihoods are at risk.
&ldquo;TikTok is the best social media platform for small businesses without a doubt,&rdquo; says Kimberly Ochsenbein, owner of Akron Lights Candle Company. &ldquo;The viral potential and the expanded reach that you get from TikTok, you can&rsquo;t get that from any other social media platform,&rdquo; she tells the Ohio Capital Journal.
In Georgia, &ldquo;90% of our sales are on TikTok Shop,&rdquo; says Paul Truong, who owns a skincare company with his wife called Love &amp; Pebble. A ban &ldquo;would be catastrophic,&rdquo; he tells the Rough Draft Atlanta site.
In Texas, Jordan Smith owns an online clothing store catering to tall women. &ldquo;It would really devastate me if this platform went away, just because it has been so helpful,&rdquo; she tells KXAN-TV in Austin.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The TikTok ban stands to be the second major blow to small online business owners since 2018.
The first was the Supreme Court&rsquo;s Wayfair decision &mdash; forcing online retailers to collect sales tax on behalf of the 45 states that levy a sales tax.
Of course the rates vary from state to state, and so do the items on which sales tax is charged. Yes, there are outside vendors who can help small online businesses navigate the thicket of differing rules&hellip; but it&rsquo;s still a drain on the precious time and money of entrepreneurs.
The TikTok ban is a much bigger burden for those businesses who count on TikTok to get their message out.
True, it&rsquo;s always a risk when your business model relies on a single platform for advertising or publicity or distribution. A few years back, several small e-publishers were instantly wiped out when Facebook changed the algorithm for its &ldquo;news&rdquo; feed.
But there was no government coercion brought to bear in the Facebook instance. There is here.
And for many entrepreneurs, TikTok offers advantages no other platform can: &ldquo;This platform is my primary source of traffic, and it&rsquo;s not for lack of trying on the other sites,&rdquo; says Callie Goodwin, who runs an online card shop in South Carolina.
As she writes in Columbia&rsquo;s newspaper The State, &ldquo;When you think about the 7 million small businesses on TikTok across the country, the extent of that financial impact can&rsquo;t be ignored.&rdquo;
Unless you&rsquo;re one of the 360 representatives and 79 senators who voted for the ban, that is&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Shipping Capacity Under Stress
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The impact of the ongoing harassment of Middle East shipping by Yemen&rsquo;s Houthi faction is now quantified. 
The giant Maersk shipping line issued a new outlook through the end of June&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4t13JUbHRTtzkJeIkLtEbs/d12c11a4b5cbe94dbfe9d5b37cd898d5/IanTweet.png" alt="Ian Tweet" width="540px" />
As Emily mentioned in last Saturday&rsquo;s edition, the trouble has extended from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. &ldquo;The risk zone has expanded, and attacks are reaching further offshore," says a Maersk statement to customers &mdash; advising of &ldquo;additional time and costs to get your cargo to its destination for the time being.&rdquo; Fuel costs are up 40%, not to mention overtime for crews and other expenses.
There&rsquo;s no end in sight &mdash; although as I said in January, Joe Biden could put an end to this state of affairs <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rising-inflation-bombs-away#2">with one phone call</a>, not unlike a phone call Ronald Reagan made in 1982. But few people on either side of the political divide seem interested in entertaining the possibility&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The stock market&rsquo;s May rally is taking a breather today.
At last check, the Dow is up about a quarter percent and the Nasdaq down about the same. The S&amp;P 500 is microscopically in the red at 5,183. Every rally needs a rest before the next leg up.
&ldquo;I was expecting a longer choppy period for stocks following the red-hot start to the year, but clearly the market has other plans,&rdquo; Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner told his Trading Desk readers yesterday.
&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t ignore the price action. And right now, it&rsquo;s looking like many stocks are prepared to retest their spring highs.&rdquo;
Precious metals are quiet, gold at $2,318 and silver at $27.40. Crude is little moved after the Energy Department&rsquo;s weekly inventory numbers, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate fetching $78.78.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The &ldquo;Big Picture&rdquo; Case for Crypto
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The same macroeconomic factors that make gold attractive also make crypto alluring.
Paradigm crypto analyst Chris Campbell made the case recently to readers of Altucher&rsquo;s Early-Stage Crypto Investor. If you already hold precious metals, it should sound eerily familiar.
&ldquo;The current economic environment,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;is characterized by high debt levels, slow growth and a reliance on central bank and government interventions to keep the system functioning.
&ldquo;Global central banks have agreed to use quantitative easing (i.e. expanding their balance sheets) to monetize government debt and keep interest rates low.
&ldquo;Right now, economic growth (GDP growth) is too slow to cover the interest payments on the high levels of debt in the system. The solution? Stimulus, which can come in various forms, such as reducing interest rates, quantitative easing, draining the reverse repo, etc.
&ldquo;While the consequences are currency debasement and rising asset prices (like crypto), the central banks avoid a deflationary collapse under the debt burden.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;BUT let&rsquo;s say things don't go that way. What if central banks can&rsquo;t control the deflationary monster?&rdquo; Chris goes on.
&ldquo;In short, debt burdens would increase, with rising defaults and bankruptcies, falling asset prices, rising unemployment and more.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s STILL a case to be made for crypto.
&ldquo;In a stagflationary or deflationary environment, for example, there would be increased interest in tokenizing real-world assets, such as real estate, commodities or even debt instruments, on blockchain networks.
&ldquo;This would create new investment opportunities and provide alternative financing and liquidity channels for otherwise illiquid assets. Moreover, access to credit through DeFi protocols could become more attractive as traditional lending channels tighten.&rdquo;
Sounds counterintuitive. but crypto and gold could save your bacon in the event of a deflationary depression.
Our macro maven Jim Rickards made the case for gold in such a situation over a decade ago: &ldquo;In that world, I might like my $500 gold better than my $5,000 gold." In other words, gold would still perform the job of preserving purchasing power &mdash; and it would perform that job way better than stocks.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It doesn&rsquo;t get much more incestuous than this: Disgraced Dallas Fed chief Robert Kaplan has landed at Goldman Sachs.
Kaplan was one of two regional Fed presidents who were trading positions in individual stocks at a time the Fed was intervening to halt the COVID crash in March 2020. Both ended up resigning in the fall of 2021.
The Fed&rsquo;s inspector general found only the &ldquo;appearance&rdquo; of a conflict of interest &mdash; huge trades in the likes of Delta Air Lines, Chevron and Apple the very week in March 2020 that Donald Trump was shutting down the economy. Just a bad look, that&rsquo;s all, no insider information or anything.
Kaplan has signed on as vice chairman at Goldman &mdash; coming back through the revolving door, having previously spent more than 20 years with the vampire squid.
Per a Reuters dispatch, &ldquo;Kaplan will give strategic advice to the Wall Street giant's clients globally, working closely with its teams across global banking and markets, and asset and wealth management, the bank said in a statement.&rdquo;
Yeah, I bet he will&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Trump-Proofing and &ldquo;the&rdquo; Ukraine
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On the topic of &ldquo;Trump-proof&rdquo; regulations we mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-issue-is-not-about-politics">off the top yesterday</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;Since the Supreme Court is going to rule on Chevron deference &mdash; where agencies can interpret laws that have revenue impact to their liking without congressional oversight &mdash; would these same agencies involved in &lsquo;Trump-proofing&rsquo; be affected if the SCOTUS ruled that changes must have congressional oversight and approval?&rdquo;
Dave responds: I half-wondered if someone would write in about this.
If you&rsquo;re unfamiliar with the topic, &ldquo;Chevron deference&rdquo; refers to a 1984 case in which the Supreme Court &ldquo;adopted a blanket presumption of deference to statutory interpretations put forth by regulatory agencies in any case where the statute was ambiguous, so long as the interpretation was reasonable,&rdquo; as Peter Suderman writes at Reason.
In other words, for the last 40 years the court has &ldquo;deferred&rdquo; to regulators in one case after another brought by the regulated. The court has taken regulators at their word when they say they&rsquo;re acting within the bounds of the authority granted them by Congress via one law or another.
Without getting any further into the weeds, the court will rule on two relevant cases before the end of June. Chevron deference probably won&rsquo;t be scrapped altogether, but it will be in for significant revision &mdash; affecting rulings on cases that come before the court in the years ahead.
The impact on the &ldquo;Trump-proof&rdquo; regulations that the Biden administration is looking to ram through this month? Hard to say until the court rules.
And as I mentioned yesterday, the Biden administration&rsquo;s &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; efforts are guarding against what seems like a low-probability event six months out from Election Day &mdash; a Trump win and GOP control in both houses of Congress. At this rate, there&rsquo;s a good chance the Democrats will flip the House and Republicans will flip the Senate&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Speaking of names,&rdquo; a reader writes as we pivot to our ongoing place-name thread, &ldquo;why is Ukraine no longer called &lsquo;the Ukraine&rsquo;?
&ldquo;Also, I was born in the Bronx: When addressing an envelope, standard operating procedure was to write/print, &lsquo;Bronx, NY Zip code&rsquo;.&rdquo;
Dave: For as badly as Wikipedia has evolved into a deep-state mouthpiece, its take on the question is remarkably neutral&hellip;
<blockquote>In the English-speaking world during most of the 20th century, Ukraine (whether independent or not) was referred to as "the Ukraine." This is because the word ukraina means 'borderland' so the definite article would be natural in the English language; this is similar to Nederlanden, which means 'low lands' and is rendered in English as "the Netherlands." However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, this usage has become politicized and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use.</blockquote>
Nowadays, &ldquo;the Ukraine&rdquo; is mostly a marker of one&rsquo;s age: Boomers still say it out of habit, Xers rarely, millennials not at all&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero giant army boot trampling on a man

shutterstock 1357110497

The impact of the TikTok ban on small online businesses is coming into view…

5 BULLETS: Small Business Under Threat (Again)

Small Business Under Threat (Again)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Ukraine&rsquo;s Mayday
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Your tax dollars at work? 

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/55E7UWcqwc7190MZytbn5L/fbd3eff4285557bc526e442f2a9f5893/amuse-tweet.png" alt="amuse tweet" width="540px" />

Budmo!
Albeit, this X-tweet is a bit misleading: The CBS Mornings piece is from July 2023. Nonetheless, according to an article published last week at Wine Enthusiast, Ukraine&rsquo;s bar scene is still humming.
&ldquo;On my second night in town in the Ukrainian city of Lviv,&rdquo; writes freelancer Adam Robb, &ldquo;I was enjoying happy hour at Siaivo, a two-story Art Deco coffee shop and bar, when an air raid siren sounded from my phone.
&ldquo;The day before,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;I was encouraged to download Air Alert, an early-warning app developed by the Ukrainian government and voiced by Mark Hamill &mdash; yes, Star Wars&rsquo; Luke Skywalker &mdash; who was now warning me to proceed to the nearest shelter.
&ldquo;No one [was] going anywhere,&rdquo; Mr. Robb says. &ldquo;The bar was actually filling up.&rdquo;
On that incongruous note, Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert &mdash; and former White House insider &mdash; Jim Rickards says: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to take another look at the war in Ukraine&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The vaunted &lsquo;summer offensive&rsquo; by Ukraine in June 2023 failed completely,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;Ukraine had between one-third and one-half of its armor destroyed, suffered huge casualties and used up its reserves.
&ldquo;Ukraine never got close to the main Russian defensive lines let alone its goal of reaching the Black Sea. What little land was gained has since been recaptured by the Russians.
&ldquo;Early this year, Russia launched a full-scale assault on the major town of Avdiivka, which had been used by Ukraine to fire artillery at Donetsk and which was outfitted as a Ukrainian citadel.
&ldquo;The Russians routed the Ukrainians and sent them into a disorderly retreat to the west,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;Ukrainian casualties are estimated at 100,000 since January, and 30,000 in the month of March alone.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/Zl7Un1TvWJX13Q7SvWSkn/9bebc487cf5aca2559e76b7be3d8c650/Russia_Ukrainmap.png" alt="Russia and Ukraine map" width="540px" />

Courtesy: ISW, BBC (As of Feb. 20, 2024)
&ldquo;Late this year, Russia may control the four provinces it has formally annexed &mdash; Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia &mdash; effectively all the former Ukraine east of the Dnipro River, as well as the entire Black Sea and Sea of Azov coastline,&rdquo; Jim anticipates.
&ldquo;Ukraine will be left as a landlocked rump state with Kyiv as its capital&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;While the kinetic war has been playing out, the U.S. is also conducting a financial war against Russia in the form of economic sanctions,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;This war is going even worse than the kinetic war,&rdquo; he notes.
&ldquo;Russia is growing at full capacity and has spot labor shortages:
<ul>
<li>The Russian economy currently has an unemployment rate of 2.8%</li>
<li>Russia&rsquo;s economy grew at an annualized rate of 5.5% in 2023</li>
<li>Russia&rsquo;s debt-to-GDP level is 17.2% (compared with the U.S. level of 131.0%)</li>
<li>The Russian ruble is steady against the dollar at about 92:1.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;By every measure, Russia&rsquo;s economy is outperforming the U.S. and is doing so on a more sustainable level from a debt perspective,&rdquo; Jim explains. &ldquo;The Russian economy is booming while the economies of the U.S., Europe and Japan are in recession.
&ldquo;Financial sanctions against Russia have been a complete failure,&rdquo; he concludes.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;As if this were not bad enough, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-election-year-financial-crisis">the dumbest idea of all</a> is to steal $300 billion of U.S. Treasury securities, owned by Russia, and use the money to pay for the war against Russia.
&ldquo;The Treasury securities were legally purchased by Russia using dollars earned through the sale of oil prior to the war,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;They were frozen in early 2022, something the U.S. has done before to Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and other nations.
&ldquo;Now the U.S. is going a step further and trying to seize these assets. This is outright theft and a violation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.&rdquo;
Jim clarifies: &ldquo;This theft would destroy the creditworthiness of the United States. Countries with large Treasury holdings &mdash; such as China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Saudi Arabia &mdash; would move their reserves to physical gold, which cannot be seized (one reason gold prices have been surging lately).
&ldquo;Finally, most of the Russian-owned Treasuries are in custody in Euroclear in Belgium, the largest clearinghouse and securities custodian in Europe.
&ldquo;If assets are seized, Russia could sue Euroclear branches in friendly jurisdictions such as Singapore and Hong Kong and likely win damages,&rdquo; Jim notes. &ldquo;More to the point, this would destroy the credit of Euroclear and possibly lead to a global financial panic.&rdquo;
Jim&rsquo;s takeaway: &ldquo;The war is going badly for the U.S.&rdquo; &mdash; and for Ukraine &mdash; &ldquo;militarily, financially and politically. Investors should prepare for a financial meltdown as this plays out,&rdquo; he cautions. &ldquo;Physical gold and cash are the best go-to assets in an environment like this.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Make It Make Sense
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Last week, we witnessed Tesla Inc. (TSLA) rally off 52-week lows, closing higher by more than 12% after reporting an earnings miss,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s chart hound Greg &ldquo;Gunner&rdquo; Guenthner.
&ldquo;The very next day, investors were forced to watch Meta Platforms Inc. (META) crater more than 15% after beating both top- and bottom-line estimates.
&ldquo;To truly understand why the market reacted as it did,&rdquo; Gunner says, &ldquo;we have to zoom out and place the earnings into the context of the bigger price trends shaping these two popular stocks&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2LVQTyAhLtyMdDk6wPCIT5/bda7b21dac6b9965e6ef36a9ef50357b/5Bullets_DarkMirror_050124.png" alt="dark mirror" width="540px" />
&ldquo;TSLA shares had already coughed up more than 40% year-to-date,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Sentiment couldn&rsquo;t have been more bearish heading into last week&rsquo;s announcement. Most investors expected the worst.
&ldquo;Combine that with the strong downtrend and breakdown to fresh lows and you have a recipe for a big bounce on mediocre results,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Tesla only needed a report that was slightly better than apocalyptic&hellip; And that&rsquo;s exactly what happened!
&ldquo;The opposite was true for Meta,&rdquo; Greg asserts. &ldquo;The stock was on a historic run, posting one of the best-looking charts amongst the mega-caps extending back to the 2022 bear market lows. This strong uptrend [left] little room for error.
&ldquo;Anything less than a &lsquo;perfect&rsquo; earnings report would of course entice investors to take profits &mdash; which is exactly what happened.
&ldquo;Bottom line,&rdquo; Gunner says, when it comes to earnings season, &ldquo;you have to separate the financials from how the herd feels about a stock. The best way to do that is to analyze prices and trends.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> After the market&rsquo;s close yesterday, Amazon reported boffo earnings: Most notably, after running ads on Prime Video starting in January, Amazon&rsquo;s advertising sales jumped 24%.
&ldquo;Amazon remains a standout among mega-cap internet companies in that it&rsquo;s yet to implement a quarterly dividend,&rdquo; CNBC highlights, &ldquo;even as cash and equivalents jumped to $73.9 billion in the quarter from $54.3 billion a year earlier.&rdquo;
But investor appetite for AMZN is just meh. Shares are up about 1.6% at the time of writing.
<ul>
<li>One economic number of note: The ISM Manufacturing Index is back in &ldquo;shrinkage&rdquo; territory, falling to 49.2% in April &mdash; which is below the dividing line between a growing factory sector and a contracting one. In March, the index, at 50.3, delivered its first positive reading in 17 months.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;Looking at the ISM data out today,&rdquo; says Paradigm analyst Dan Amoss, &ldquo;the internals of the survey point to stagflation: lower new orders, higher employment and many more survey respondents saying input prices are rising in the past four months.
&ldquo;Will Jay Powell brush it off?&rdquo; Dan asks. &ldquo;We'll see soon.&rdquo; (More on the FOMC meeting in a moment.)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Checking on stocks this afternoon, the Big Board is holding up best: The Dow&rsquo;s added 0.30% to 37,930. On the other hand, the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq are both in the red &mdash; both down about 0.30% to 5,020 and 15,594 respectively.
It&rsquo;s a mixed bag for commodities too. Oil&rsquo;s slumped 3.15% to a seven-week low, right under $80 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals, however, are catching bids. The price of gold is up 0.60% to $2,316.50 per ounce while silver&rsquo;s up 0.50%, hanging tight above $26.
It&rsquo;s a bad day for crypto (but it&rsquo;ll bounce back): Bitcoin&rsquo;s lost 4.6% to $57,000, and Ethereum&rsquo;s sitting at $2,900.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Powell&rsquo;s Persistent Problem 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The third FOMC meeting of 2024 is underway: &ldquo;We expect that the Fed&rsquo;s rate hike cycle, which began in March 2022, is over,&rdquo; says Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;In effect, the Fed has concluded that they have reached the terminal rate &mdash; the rate at which inflation is expected to come down on its own without further rate hikes.
&ldquo;The reason for the Fed sitting tight and not cutting rates (the infamous &lsquo;pivot&rsquo; that Wall Street has been wrong about for two years) is that the Fed is losing the battle against inflation.
&ldquo;The best that can be said,&rdquo; Jim adds, &ldquo;is that inflation is in a range with a central tendency of about 3.3%. It has been stuck in that range for almost one year, and is not trending toward the Fed&rsquo;s goal of 2.0%.
&ldquo;The Fed&rsquo;s dilemma carried over from prior meetings is still unresolved&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Continuing high inflation and high oil prices argue for keeping rates where they are</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a id="4"></a>Reduced consumer spending, higher credit card balances and higher loan delinquencies argue for possibly cutting rates to avoid a recession,&rdquo; Jim concludes.</li>
</ul>
In light of such conflicting data? We&rsquo;ll have robust coverage of Powell&rsquo;s press conference in a special edition tomorrow morning&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />After 50 Years, DEA Admits Blunder
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Yesterday, The Associated Press was the first to report the Drug Enforcement Administration&rsquo;s intention to &ldquo;reschedule&rdquo; marijuana. 
(Heh, at least that&rsquo;s the scoop according to &ldquo;five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive regulatory review,&rdquo; the AP says.)
Regardless, this is historic: &ldquo;The proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation&rsquo;s most dangerous drugs,&rdquo; says the AP. &ldquo;However, it would not [federally] legalize marijuana outright for recreational use.&rdquo;
Here&rsquo;s what Paradigm&rsquo;s pot-stock authority Ray Blanco said in 2018&hellip;
<blockquote>Even if you personally think recreational pot is a bridge too far, it&rsquo;s impossible for any reasonable person to make the case that marijuana should remain a Schedule I drug &mdash; considered by the federal government to be more dangerous than crack cocaine, meth and PCP.</blockquote>
Yesterday, Ray commented: &ldquo;Not only could this produce a tax windfall and a million jobs &mdash; two things our country could certainly use &mdash; it would also make U.S.-based pot companies competitive with their foreign rivals for the first time.&rdquo;
Speaking of cannabis&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />A Toker Takes Umbrage
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;As a cannabis user (for my health), your stereotype is unfair,&rdquo; a new reader writes about cannabis consumption and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/dhs-has-plans-for-ai#4">typical &ldquo;munchies.&rdquo;</a>
Our reader continues: &ldquo;I am in my mid-40s, love to cook healthy stuff and will never eat fast food.
&ldquo;I am productive as I spend much of my time reading Paradigm Press insights and applying it to my investing strategies. So far, I am doing well. So thanks!&rdquo;
Cheers to your health (and portfolio)! That&rsquo;s all very gratifying to hear&hellip;
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

5 bullets Ukraine flag on wall and refugee shadows.

shutterstock 2131158147

“It’s time to take another look at the war in Ukraine,” says Paradigm’s macro expert Jim Rickards. 

5 BULLETS: Ukraine’s Mayday

Ukraine’s Mayday

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Don&rsquo;t Worry, the Experts Have It All Figured Out (AI)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> John Robb, author of the book Brave New War, is absolutely right when he asks, &ldquo;Why doesn&rsquo;t this instill any confidence?&rdquo;
This is the Department of Homeland Security announcing last Friday the launch of an &ldquo;Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board.&rdquo;
The board will meet for the first time in May. Here&rsquo;s a screenshot pulled straight from the press release identifying its 22 members in alphabetical order&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/s3WmLQ2hEe50es2qnTwsP/4203ebe94845d672d267ec8f606560c4/AIBoard.png" alt="AI Board" width="450px" />
Per a statement from DHS, &ldquo;the Board will develop recommendations to help critical infrastructure stakeholders, such as transportation service providers, pipeline and power grid operators and internet service providers, more responsibly leverage AI technologies. [Emphasis ours]
&ldquo;It will also develop recommendations to prevent and prepare for AI-related disruptions to critical services that impact national or economic security, public health or safety.&rdquo;
I dunno, maybe it&rsquo;s just me&hellip; but if that&rsquo;s the point of the exercise, you&rsquo;d think they&rsquo;d include the CEO of a trucking line or a railroad, right? And the CEO of a power utility, and a pipeline company? And maybe someone from Comcast or Charter?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But no. The only CEOs outside the tech sector hail from an airline, an oil company and (of course) the military-industrial complex.
But there is someone from the Brookings Institution whose personal website says she &ldquo;researches public policy designed to enable equitable access to technology across the U.S. and to harness its power to create change in communities across the world.&rdquo;
So if this board fails at its assigned task and, say, a rogue AI takes down the power grid&hellip; at least you can freeze in the dark knowing the failure is &ldquo;equitable.&rdquo; Yay?
And when it comes to tech executives, the leaders of Meta (Facebook) and X (formerly Twitter) were pointedly excluded, despite their companies&rsquo; extensive AI operations.
Of course, Elon Musk has been persona non grata with the power elite for several years now. And perhaps Mark Zuckerberg offended his fellow elites last year when he <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/zuckerberg-says-establishment-asked-facebook-censor-covid-misinfo-ended-true-undermines-trust">said</a> that during COVID time, &ldquo;the establishment&hellip; asked for a bunch of things to be censored that, in retrospect, ended up being more debatable or true.&rdquo;
So no, the &ldquo;Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board&rdquo; does not instill confidence.
But don&rsquo;t get us wrong: That&rsquo;s a knock on the government, not on AI.
In fact, Paradigm tech-and-biotech specialist Ray Blanco has unearthed what might be the smallest AI company we&rsquo;ve ever recommended. He says it&rsquo;s about to announce the biggest AI news in history&hellip; and the profit potential is greater than that of Nvidia.
Considering Ray first recommended Nvidia to his readers in 2011 when it traded for a mere $3&hellip; <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2317562">we urge you to click here and give Ray&rsquo;s words careful consideration</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />More Reminders Inflation Is Not &ldquo;Under Control&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here comes another wave of inflation trepidation to drag down the stock market. Most of yesterday&rsquo;s gains have vaporized.
The trouble started when McDonald&rsquo;s reported its first-quarter numbers. It whiffed on both earnings and on same-store sales. &ldquo;Higher prices have scared away some low-income customers,&rdquo; says CNBC.
Then came the release of the Labor Department&rsquo;s quarterly employment cost index &mdash; which rang in hotter than expected. That does nothing to assuage fears of a dreaded &ldquo;wage-price spiral&rdquo; of the kind that made inflation so persistent in the late 1970s.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The backdrop for this inflation trepidation is the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s Open Market Committee &mdash; which begins two days of meetings today.
At the conclusion of the meeting tomorrow, the FOMC will keep the fed funds rate steady at 5.5%. No uncertainty there. The uncertainty surrounds whatever Fed chair Jerome Powell will say about the path forward in light of the fact that even going by the official numbers, inflation is not bottoming. In fact, it&rsquo;s higher now than it was nine months earlier&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3hcjsOot8VA6UtaSRUrCHA/eccb84db92a5bda54a6ca3318f40c86a/5Bullets_StickyInflation_043024.png" alt="Sticky Inflation" width="540px" />
Not helping matters is the rise in oil prices from under $69 a barrel in December to over $82 this morning.
&ldquo;Oil price increases don&rsquo;t hit consumer prices all at once,&rdquo; Jim Rickards tells his Crisis Trader readers.
&ldquo;It takes time for the higher oil price to trickle through the economy in the form of higher transportation costs, higher prices for gas at the pump and higher prices for everything from food to clothing that depends on energy for its production. The April 2024 oil price spike will keep CPI inflation higher than expected for months to come.&rdquo;
And that in turn will likely prompt the Fed to keep interest rates &ldquo;higher for longer.&rdquo; There may be no rate cuts at all in 2024.
Thus, the major U.S. stock indexes are all in the red by at least three-quarters of a percent, the S&amp;P 500 at 5,079.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, someone or a group of someones appears determined to make sure gold doesn&rsquo;t notch a monthly close over $2,300 today.
Since April 5, gold has spent every minute of every trading day over $2,300. Until today.
The Midas metal traded at $2,330 or higher for much of Friday and yesterday. Then it started to slide during overnight trading in Hong Kong. The selling accelerated as trading opened in London, then in New York.
At last check, the bid is $2,297. Silver has likewise fallen victim to &ldquo;Mr. Slammy,&rdquo; down 69 cents to $26.40.
Crypto is faring little better. Bitcoin is under $61,000 for the first time in 12 days.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Electric Freight: The Ambition, the Reality
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Because it&rsquo;s not enough to insist on shuttering coal and natural gas power plants (see <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/bank-crisis-2024">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>)&hellip; the Biden administration is looking to further constrain the power grid by electrifying freight transport.
&ldquo;The transportation sector generates about 29% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,&rdquo; says a Bloomberg story, &ldquo;and the shipment of freight &mdash; whether on ships, trucks or rail &mdash; is responsible for about a third of that.&rdquo;
Thus, &ldquo;for the first time, the White House will explicitly establish a national goal for a zero-emissions freight sector. Though it doesn&rsquo;t come with an express timetable, the ambition is undergirded by other milestones, including a target for 30% of medium- and heavy-duty truck sales to be zero-emission models in 2030.&rdquo;
There are two underlying assumptions behind this &ldquo;ambition&rdquo; &mdash; 1) that charging infrastructure will be in place for these trucks and 2) that the grid won&rsquo;t collapse under the additional demand from electric trucks, electric passenger cars, AI datacenters, etc.
To date, the only major company that&rsquo;s made electric freight transport work kinda-sorta is Pepsi, which has a fleet of 21 Tesla 18-wheelers at its operations in Sacramento, California.
But most of those are in use only for deliveries within 100 miles. For longer hauls, Tesla has been installing 750-kilowatt &ldquo;Megachargers&rdquo; for Pepsi.
<a id="4"></a>
&ldquo;Pepsico noted the difficulty of installing that much charging power at a facility,&rdquo; says a 2023 Elektrek article, &ldquo;and said that they will use what they learned from this experience to plan for future depots that will be electrified.&rdquo;
And 30% of new truck sales are supposed to be electric only six years from now? Good luck with that&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Munchies, Quantified
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Whether from personal experience or otherwise, you likely know that cannabis consumption fuels hunger &mdash; and not for health food, either. Now there are numbers to bear that out.
A market research firm called Numerator conducted a survey this month of &ldquo;nearly 6,000 present and past self-reported THC &amp; CBD users,&rdquo; says the press release, &ldquo;as well as an analysis of the verified buying behaviors for these same individuals.&rdquo;
Here are the munchies quantified: The survey confirms THC users are more likely to visit a &ldquo;limited-service restaurant&rdquo; or use a food delivery app. &ldquo;They are 61% more likely to have ordered from Doordash, 35% more likely for Uber Eats, 31% for Little Caesars Pizza, 28% for Jersey Mike&rsquo;s Subs, 22% for Taco Bell, 22% for Jack in the Box, 19% for Pizza Hut, 19% for Dominos, 17% for Wawa and 16% for Popeyes.&rdquo;
Interesting about Jersey Mike&rsquo;s: Apparently even stoners don&rsquo;t want to eat Subway.
One curiosity in the survey: THC users&rsquo; beer and hard-liquor purchases are slightly higher than non-users&hellip; but 36% of users say they&rsquo;ve reduced their alcohol consumption since they started using THC.
Discouragingly, &ldquo;Consumers who say they use THC products are more likely to be Gen Z or millennials, have low to middle income (&lt;$60K) and have health concerns around anxiety and stress.&rdquo;
Young, broke and stressed &mdash; so they resort to self-soothing. Sounds about right. Sign of the times&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />What&rsquo;s In a Name? (Continued&hellip;)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After Friday and Monday, we&rsquo;ve got a full-on discussion in the mailbag about foreign place names &mdash; and beyond.
One reader invoked song lyrics&hellip;
<blockquote>Even old New York was once New Amsterdam Why they changed it I can't say People just liked it better that way&hellip;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks&rsquo;&nbsp;</blockquote>
The song is called &ldquo;Istanbul (Not Constantinople)&rdquo; &mdash; first recorded in 1953 by The Four Lads and covered in 1990 by They Might Be Giants. Now you know.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Please allow a small addendum to the current discussion of pronunciation occuring in the 5 Bullets,&rdquo; writes one of our longtimers.
&ldquo;A close acquaintance (if there is such a thing) of a previous generation used to insist on pronouncing Linex as &lsquo;Lie-nex&rsquo; to make it &lsquo;correct in English.&rsquo;
&ldquo;From him I put up with this since he did work for NASA and is one of those guys that used to wire keypunch machines together and do ballistics calculations during WWII. However, in truth English is a bastard language (&lsquo;bastard&rsquo; as in &lsquo;bastard file&rsquo; for those of you who took shop class) that steals from any language it comes across.
&ldquo;In addition the Brits have been mangling place names for centuries (Bethlehem to &lsquo;Bedlam,&rsquo; Cholmondeley to &lsquo;Chumly,&rsquo; Worcestershire to &lsquo;Wooster&rsquo;), so I really don't mind Milano becoming &lsquo;Milan.&rsquo;
&ldquo;However I do have one pet peeve on this subject. While learning to sing the Italian &lsquo;pure&rsquo; vowels I also learned that in Italian everything is pronounced. Therefore, despite what the teenagers in the sandwith shops say, those pale yellow cheese slices in your sub should be pronounced pro-va-lone-e.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I too do not approve of the changes of names,&rdquo; writes our final correspondent.
&ldquo;I assume that the use of a local name is someone trying to show off that they know the names the locals use. I think the opposite &mdash; that they are not aware that there is an English name.
&ldquo;I will continue to refer to Peking, Burma, Paris, Rome, Madras, etc. I do not think that countries that do not use our language should dictate how we translate it as with Beijing. There are many places that we have no hope of pronouncing correctly unless proficient in the language &mdash; such as Cairo and Qatar.&rdquo;
Dave&rsquo;s last word: You just reminded me&hellip; Contrary to popular belief, the town at the southern tip of Illinois whose name looks like the capital of Egypt is not pronounced KAY-ro. It&rsquo;s CARE-o.
Come to think of it, there&rsquo;s another town in southern Illinois called VY-enna.
And to get this conversation back where it started, a town in western Illinois called MY-lan. So there!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 Bullets hero Concept of United States of America closed borders with flag and wire fence. 

shutterstock 1719774118

No, the “Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board” does not instill confidence. But don’t get us wrong: That’s a knock on the government, not on AI. 

5 BULLETS: DHS Has Plans for AI

DHS Has Plans for AI

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Second Half of the Bank Crisis, Kicking off Now
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Gee, what was it that Paradigm&rsquo;s own Jim Rickards was saying earlier this month about how the bank failures that began last year were only at &ldquo;halftime&rdquo;? 
Oh yes, here it is from <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/13-banks-on-the-brink">our April 8 edition</a>: &ldquo;The second stage of the crisis would erupt in even more dramatic fashion sooner or later.&rdquo;
Conventional wisdom has it that the bank blowups in the spring of 2023 were a one-off: Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic, et al. were a freak occurrence brought about by the Federal Reserve raising interest rates at the fastest clip in over 40 years.
The rate hikes damaged the value of the Treasury paper held by the banks &mdash; which would have been fine as long as depositors weren&rsquo;t fleeing and suddenly the banks had to unload those Treasuries at fire-sale prices. But depositors did flee, and the rest was history.
And as the official narrative went &mdash; dutifully parroted by corporate media &mdash; the whole thing blew over after only two months.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Wrong: The second half of the banking crisis kicked off after the close of business Friday afternoon.
At that time, regulators swooped in and shut down Philadelphia-based Republic Bank, unloading it onto the regional lender Fulton Financial.
Republic&rsquo;s parent firm had about $6 billion in assets &mdash; much smaller than last year&rsquo;s headline-making blowups like Silicon Valley Bank. But it&rsquo;s the first failure of 2024 and Republic Bank went under for the same reason behind the 2023 failures &mdash; paper losses on Treasuries becoming actual losses amid a severe cash crunch.
Unlike last year, the regulators saw this one coming. They had ample time to line up a buyer. As such, the feds probably won&rsquo;t be stuck with deciding whether to backstop depositors over the FDIC limit of $250,000 &mdash; which the feds chose to do last year.
But as Jim said earlier this month, more and bigger failures are in store. We&rsquo;re talking about banks with up to $900 billion in total assets that are at risk.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Will that be enough to drain the FDIC&rsquo;s emergency reserve? And what then? 
A reader of Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence wrote in with that very question earlier this month.
Answer: The coming bank failures &ldquo;will deplete the FDIC reserve accounts to some extent,&rdquo; Jim said.
&ldquo;However, this does not mean the end of FDIC insurance, and it will not mean the freezing of bank accounts. Instead, the FDIC fund can be replenished with loans, higher premiums from the member banks or a direct infusion of reserves authorized by Congress.
&ldquo;So there may be banks that fail, and temporary dislocations for depositors, but the FDIC itself will not fail (even if it is bailed out) and insured accounts at banks should be safe.
&ldquo;Still, if the FDIC increases insurance premiums to solvent banks, those banks will increase fees or lower interest rates paid to customers to make up the increase. So everyday depositors will still pay in the end.&rdquo;
They always get you one way or another, right? Stay tuned&hellip;
[Editor&rsquo;s note: Through midnight tonight, you can still claim a box packed with an assortment of items Jim has selected to help protect you from an all-out financial war &mdash; a war he expects to break out in a matter of weeks.
It&rsquo;s about the size of a shoebox, give or take. If you&rsquo;re curious about the contents, our customer care director Dustin Weisbecker <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2317148">tells you all about it at this link</a>.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Perception IS Reality (The Fed and Inflation)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Wall Street is starting the new week on a calm note. Starting tomorrow, three events could set off a renewed round of volatility.
Two more of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; stocks report their numbers this week &mdash; Amazon tomorrow and Apple Thursday. In between, the Federal Reserve will issue its latest policy statement and Fed chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference.
The Fed will leave short-term rates where they are for now, the fed funds rate at 5.5%. No drama there &mdash; the Fed has telegraphed its intentions for weeks now. The uncertainty surrounds Wall Street&rsquo;s ever-diminishing hopes for rate cuts before year-end, given how persistent inflation is proving to be.
It&rsquo;s not just that every measure of inflation is moving in the wrong direction &mdash; as we noted last Thursday and Friday. It&rsquo;s also that perceptions of inflation are moving in the wrong direction.
On Friday the University of Michigan issued its monthly consumer-sentiment numbers. The typical survey respondent expects inflation to run 3.2% over the next 12 months &mdash; up from 2.9% in March, indeed the highest reading since last November.
It seems dubious that everyday Americans would project the inflation rate down to a tenth of a percent unless prodded to do so by academic pollsters. (I mean, really?) Nonetheless, the Fed takes this portion of the survey very seriously when setting policy. Inflation expectations point to rates remaining, as the saying goes, &ldquo;higher for longer.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In the meantime, all the major U.S. stock indexes are starting the week modestly in the green &mdash; each up about a third of a percent, the S&amp;P 500 at 5,117.
Likewise for precious metals, with gold at $2,342 and silver at $27.35. Bitcoin sits a hair below $63,000.
Crude is down, but still over $83. Copper, meanwhile, has climbed over $4.50 a pound for the first time since the summer of 2022. If a recession is looming, &ldquo;the metal with a Ph.D. in economics&rdquo; will be blindsided&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Inevitable Blackouts (Doubling Down on Renewables)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The power grid in Texas will be under stress this week.
The grid operator ERCOT warns that the grid might have insufficient reserves starting tonight and continuing through Wednesday night. Planned maintenance shutdowns are on hold, just in case.
&ldquo;Grid conditions can be tight this time of the year,&rdquo; says Bloomberg, &ldquo;because early heat can increase demand while supplies are hampered by scheduled maintenance in preparation for the summer air-conditioning season.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Longer-term, ERCOT is warning that poorly maintained renewable energy equipment could cause &ldquo;immediate catastrophic grid failure.&rdquo;
For all its fossil-fuel street cred, Texas has adopted much wind and solar for its power grid in recent years.
Wind, solar and batteries rely on inverters that convert direct current (DC) to the alternating current (AC) that powers homes and businesses. Conventional power generators can usually &ldquo;ride through&rdquo; disruptions to the grid like lightning strikes. Inverters, not so much &mdash; especially older ones.
If they fail, &ldquo;this could lead to a domino effect of other generators tripping offline,&rdquo; says the Houston Chronicle, &ldquo;which could in a worst-case scenario result in the &lsquo;rapid collapse of part of or all the ERCOT system,&rsquo; according to ERCOT.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> No matter: The Biden administration is plowing ahead with plans to further &ldquo;de-carbonize&rdquo; the power grid nationwide.
Last Thursday, the EPA rolled out new rules that &ldquo;will force the nation&rsquo;s current fleet of coal plants to capture nearly all of their carbon dioxide emissions &mdash; or close &mdash; by 2039,&rdquo; says Bloomberg. &ldquo;And it will compel similar pollution cuts for many of the new gas-fired plants built to replace them.&rdquo;
Right &mdash; and at a time AI data centers and electric vehicles will only add to the load on the system. What could go wrong?
Meanwhile in the real world, 19 states are currently at risk of blackouts even under typical peak-demand conditions &mdash; like Texas this week.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re already in a tough spot,&rdquo; says Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. &ldquo;It creates uncertainty about how we&rsquo;re going to keep the lights on.&rdquo;
The Paradigm team continues to hunt for investment angles. Zach Scheidt already has one for readers of Lifetime Income Report. Other editors are also conducting their due diligence &mdash; because this issue isn&rsquo;t going away&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Happy Ending for &ldquo;Bitcoin Sign Guy&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> One more item in our follow-up file today &mdash; remember this?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3MhPsom0s0sebTX0VgPL7x/266ae1b2a0d78cb918fab620c7c71490/Yellen.png" alt="yellen" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s Janet Yellen, testifying to Congress back when she was Federal Reserve chair in 2017 &mdash; photobombed by a fellow known at the time only as &ldquo;Bitcoin Sign Guy.&rdquo;
Security whisked him from the room. But as we chronicled back then, someone claiming to be his friend tweeted a Bitcoin address where cryptocurrency fans could send the man donations. He netted about $16,000 within 48 hours.
As it happens, he just got a much bigger payday: With the aid of an auction site called Scarce.City, the legal pad on which he scribbled his advice sold last week for 16 Bitcoin, about $1.027 million.
As CoinMarketCap reports, &ldquo;The auction event took place at PubKey, a Bitcoin-themed bar located in New York City, adding a touch of cryptocurrency ambiance to the proceedings.
&ldquo;The buyer of the sign is an individual known by the online alias Squirrekkywrath, as confirmed in a tweet by PubKey. Not much is known about the new owner, but Alex Thorn, the head of research at Galaxy, describes them as a &lsquo;Bitcoin OG that no one has ever heard of&rsquo;."
As for the seller&rsquo;s identity, he turns out to be one Christian Langlais. Then, he was a 22-year-old intern at the Cato Institute. Now, he says he&rsquo;ll use the money to fund a Bitcoin software startup called Tirrel Corp.
If Tirrel succeeds, he won&rsquo;t have to fork over anything to venture capital. Or at least, he&rsquo;ll have to fork over much less than he would have without his sign gambit seven years ago. Well played, Mr. Langlais.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: What&rsquo;s in a Name?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> I had no idea my passing comment Thursday about the names of Italian cities would touch off controversy in the mailbag Friday &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-new-diversification#object">but it did</a>.
And it inspired further feedback today: &ldquo;I don't remember the exact date (sometime late last century),&rdquo; a reader writes, &ldquo;but it seemed like overnight that early wokesters in the press changed Peking to Beijing, Chunking to Chongqing and Bombay to Mumbai.
&ldquo;It seems like Milano and Torino are just late to the party.&rdquo;
Dave responds: At the persistent prodding of the Chinese government, &ldquo;Beijing&rdquo; slowly came into vogue after normalization of relations between Mainland China and the United States in 1979. The New York Times made the switch in 1986, the BBC in 1990.
Your editor was coming of age back then and didn&rsquo;t give it much thought but in retrospect it makes no sense: &ldquo;It was comparable to the Germans suddenly insisting that we start calling Munich M&uuml;nchen or the Russians demanding we call Moscow Moskva,&rdquo; wrote Mark Higgie for The Spectator Australia in 2020.
&ldquo;China&rsquo;s justification was that the new names it insisted on more accurately indicated their pronunciation in Mandarin. Despite the audaciousness of the demand, the English-speaking world steadily capitulated.&rdquo;
[But go figure, a renowned institution of higher education in the Chinese capital is still called &ldquo;Peking University.&rdquo;]
And it&rsquo;s from that same place that I bristle at &ldquo;Milano&rdquo; or &ldquo;Torino.&rdquo; I still remember something James Fallows wrote for The Atlantic in 2007. At that time, he was fighting a losing battle over what to call the country with the biggest land area in mainland Southeast Asia &mdash; Burma or Myanmar.
&ldquo;Since first visiting the country during the violent protests in 1988,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve followed arguments about the twists and turns of what to call the country in Burmese&hellip;
&ldquo;But when it comes to referring to the nation in English, there&rsquo;s little debate. Myanmar is the name invented [in 1989] by the benighted junta... When Westerners say &lsquo;Myanmar,&rsquo; they&rsquo;re not being culturally respectful to the people of a beautiful but oppressed nation. We don&rsquo;t call China Zhongguo or Germany Deutschland just because the locals do. They're bowing to the whims of the generals who still imprison Aung San Suu Kyi.&rdquo;
In the ensuing 17 years, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from prison&hellip; became the head of government&hellip; lost her halo as a human-rights heroine amid the slaughter of the ethnic Rohingya peoples&hellip; and went back to prison.
And, against all common sense, the name Myanmar has stuck&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero Economic crisis concept shown by declining graphs 

shutterstock 2205373389

What was it that Paradigm’s own Jim Rickards was saying earlier this month about how the bank failures that began last year were only at “halftime”? 

5 BULLETS: Bank Crisis 2024

Bank Crisis 2024

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Not Your Father&rsquo;s Diversification
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t normally leave the house,&rdquo; joked iconoclast investor James Altucher during our live event yesterday, streamed from Paradigm&rsquo;s new headquarters just outside Baltimore.
James' assertion, by the way, can&rsquo;t be true since he mentioned he&rsquo;d recently spoken at events in Texas and Utah and will be traveling to another in Norway two weeks hence.
But our team &mdash; including Paradigm&rsquo;s VP of Publishing Doug Hill &mdash; were delighted to host James for what turned out to be a rousing hour-plus conversation, punctuated by giveaways of $1,000 to 75 lucky Zoom participants.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/9q8oGPyoPthwjsYQbxM35/876d3b403451ca01bf3c615626631650/James-Doug.png" alt="james and doug" width="540px" />

Courtesy: Jessica Zeller James Altucher and MC Doug Hill prepare for the live Zoom call&hellip; <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/nmx0zsDn2xdmppNsBIQNJ/acc01ae6375668526894aea527af2928/James_Doug2.png" alt="james and doug" width="540px" />

Courtesy: Jessica Zeller Another peek behind the scenes&hellip; 
Shortly on the heels of kicking off the event, James mentioned: &ldquo;Inflation looms over our economy, we have this bottomless national debt and two hot wars.&rdquo; Indeed, it is enough to make you want to hide out at home.
Instead&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Look at all this volatility&hellip; and learn how to be calm as an investor,&rdquo; James urges. For that, he advocates for diversification. But this isn&rsquo;t your father&rsquo;s diversification&hellip;
&ldquo;When people get nervous about current events,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;you could see gold spike. Lately, Bitcoin has served this purpose, as a store of wealth or a flight to safety.&rdquo;
He points to countries adopting Bitcoin, including El Salvador; he also mentions a groundswell of support in Switzerland to allow crypto to be added to central bank reserves.
&ldquo;Real diversification now is having diversified alternative strategies,&rdquo; James says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s good to have multiple uncorrelated strategies.&rdquo; To wit, stocks tend to rise and fall together.
So when a Zoom participant asked how much crypto to allocate in a typical portfolio, James recommended 5&ndash;10%. (Much like Jim Rickards&rsquo; gold allocation.) &ldquo;Risk management is critical,&rdquo; he cautions. As for altcoins, James says he likes to invest in 15&ndash;20 coins (but no meme coins for him).
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Regardless of volatility, James believes: &ldquo;This is a very interesting time because we&rsquo;re in the sweet spot for crypto, the sweet spot for AI.&rdquo; 
And James didn&rsquo;t disappoint yesterday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1eExGJQ9nx0ZHnDYu7ADap/a469732c8799dca998e740c52fb5180d/James-Doug3.png" alt="james and doug" width="540px" />
He promised to give away three tickers for viewers&rsquo; consideration. Instead, he shared five &mdash; running the gamut from altcoins to microcap stocks.
In short, James says: &ldquo;Try to stay focused on making money&rdquo; and don&rsquo;t allow fear to &ldquo;override&rdquo; the desire to protect your family&rsquo;s wealth.
[Former hedge fund manager James Altucher says: &ldquo;I&rsquo;d rather help 20,000 people learn about investing rather than help 20 millionaires make more money.&rdquo;
For a brief window, you can <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2316723">watch a rebroadcast</a> of James&rsquo; wide-ranging conversation. It&rsquo;s not to be missed! But the link goes dead on Sunday at midnight.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Inflation Drifts Away From Fed&rsquo;s Target
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The Commerce Department came out this morning with &ldquo;core PCE&rdquo; &mdash; the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred measure of inflation. When people at the Fed speak of their 2% inflation target, it&rsquo;s core PCE they&rsquo;re talking about.
For all practical purposes, inflation is once again drifting away from the 2% target. Core PCE was up a &ldquo;brisk&rdquo; 0.3% in March to 2.8% year-over-year. Among dozens of economists polled, the average guess was a slightly lower 2.7%.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s both a story here about the economy holding up very well with high interest rates, as well as inflation pressures being persistent,&rdquo; says an optimistic JPMorgan economist Bruce Kasman.
&ldquo;And while I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s right to talk about this from the point of view of Fed tightening, I think the case for Fed easing here is pretty small anytime soon,&rdquo; Kasman concedes.
We&rsquo;ll have more on the Fed&rsquo;s clownery and Wall Street&rsquo;s fairytale in a moment&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Two tech titans reported Q1 earnings yesterday afternoon. 
Namely, Alphabet (Google&rsquo;s parent company) reported an earnings beat, citing demand for its new AI contributions. Plus, for the first time in the company&rsquo;s history, Alphabet announced a dividend of $0.20 per share on Class A, B and C stock to be disbursed on June 17. Google shares are up about 10% today.
And Microsoft shares have bounced a modest 2.4% after the company announced its own earnings beat &mdash; again, attributed to its AI products.
With that, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index is catching a bid, gaining 2.15% and approaching 16,000. Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 index is up 1.15% to 5,100 while the staid Dow is up 0.55% to 38,290.
Turning to the commodities complex, oil is in the green, up 0.55% to $84.05 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Gold is up a modest 0.15% to $2,334.90 per ounce, but silver&rsquo;s down 0.75% to $27.18, according to Kitco.
The crypto market is in the red today: Bitcoin&rsquo;s lost 1.55% to $63,600 while Ethereum&rsquo;s down 1.25% to $3,115.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;Stagflation, Anyone?&rdquo; 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;They were wrong, we were right,&rdquo; Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert Jim Rickards says.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve written for months that there would be no interest rate cut by the Fed at their June meeting. Wall Street was putting the odds of a rate cut at around 70% and the stock market was rallying, anticipating the cut.&rdquo; (See above.)
Yesterday? &ldquo;Every Wall Street analyst was proclaiming there will be no rate cut in June, maybe not in July either,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;[Their] forecast came after the market had already corrected&hellip; That&rsquo;s worthless forecasting, but it&rsquo;s what Wall Street does best.
&ldquo;Early 2023 was Wall Street&rsquo;s target date for the &lsquo;pivot,&rsquo;&rdquo; he recollects. &ldquo;That never happened. Moving the pivot date from June 2024 to later this year is just their latest blunder.
&ldquo;Now there is a chance that we won&rsquo;t get any rate cuts this year&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The Fed wants to see inflation start coming down in a persistent manner, but the market wants to see economic growth and corporate profits increasing,&rdquo; Jim adds.
&ldquo;If neither is headed in the right direction, then that&rsquo;s going to be bad news for markets,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;With inflation actually rising in the latest report and economic growth slowing down with yesterday&rsquo;s GDP report, this is exactly what is happening.
&ldquo;Behind Powell&rsquo;s carefully laid plans and the markets&rsquo; Goldilocks-type assumptions lies a huge fallacy. The assumption is that interest rates and inflation have a reciprocal relationship. Markets and the Fed both assume that current high interest rates will tame inflation, and that will pave the way for rate cuts, stronger growth and higher stock prices. But there&rsquo;s no evidence for this.
&ldquo;History teaches that there is no inverse correlation between interest rates and inflation&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The Great Depression (1929&ndash;1933) was a period of low interest rates and unprecedented deflation</li>
<li>The Great Inflation (1977&ndash;1981) was a period of high interest rates and record-high inflation.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;We could be looking at the worst of all possible worlds,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;We are now seeing slowing growth and higher inflation at the same time&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Stagflation, anyone?&rdquo; he posits, by which the economy stagnates but inflation continues to ravage everyday folks&rsquo; finances.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re back to the conundrum that has faced the Fed since they stopped raising rates last July,&rdquo; Jim concludes.
&ldquo;The Fed is reluctant to cut rates because it might fuel inflation. At the same time, the Fed is reluctant to keep rates too high because it might cause recession (which may be already here)
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been saying for months that a recession is imminent,&rdquo; Jim warns. &ldquo;GDP numbers reflect that the economic engine is slowing down.&rdquo;
Meanwhile, Wall Street continues to spin a &ldquo;narrative designed to lull investors into complacency and into buying more stocks.
&ldquo;Wall Street is following the Fed. And the Fed is using bad models that are consistently getting their forecasts wrong,&rdquo; Jim concludes.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the blind leading the blind.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The AI-Deal Brew
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> A Finland-based company has created the &ldquo;world's first artificial intelligence coffee.&rdquo; 
Kaffa Roastery partnered with local AI startup Elev to design coffee that&rsquo;s &ldquo;a testament to the harmonious blend of technology and tradition, offering a sophisticated and multi-layered experience in every cup,&rdquo; Kaffa Roastery says.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4ikZ3R3gMPexnaj2tJ9UGr/bc732d0846f7fb909e79d4b4756c73f5/coffee.png" alt="coffee" width="300px" />

Courtesy: kaffaroastery.fi/en &ldquo;AI-Conic&rdquo;: Heh, punning IS universal
Elev used large language model (LLM) AI to input data provided by Kaffa&rsquo;s master roasters to mix beans from four different countries: Brazil (40%), Colombia (25%), Guatemala (25%) and Ethiopia (10%).
According to Kaffa Roastery&rsquo;s founder Svante Hampf, AI&rsquo;s four-bean mix is a surprising departure from the typical two-to-three bean blends. The result is &ldquo;juicy and dynamic. A well balanced blend of sweetness and ripe fruit,&rdquo; the company&rsquo;s website says.
&ldquo;After the first test roasting and blind testing, Kaffa&rsquo;s coffee experts agreed,&rdquo; the AP reports, &ldquo;the tech-assisted blend was perfect, and there was no need for human adjustments.&rdquo;
And the Finns know their coffee.
With a population roughly equivalent to metro Atlanta, the Nordic nation consumes the most coffee in the world: 26.5 lbs per capita annually. Must need a pick-me-up in the &ldquo;Land of the Midnight Sun&rdquo;!
AI to the rescue?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />(Circadian) Rhythm Is Going to Get You
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;I&rsquo;m thrilled that the financial industry is finally catching up with us working grunts!&rdquo; says a first-time contributor about a <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-shoplifters-investing-secret#2">24/7 stock market.</a> &ldquo;I&rsquo;m in the medical field, very much used to working odd hours including nights and weekends.&rdquo;
Another contributor agrees: &ldquo;Yes, that would work great for me as I&rsquo;m 12 hours ahead of the market. I live in the Philippines and currently trade until around midnight then go to bed hoping my trades work out.&rdquo;
Still another reader writes in: You can&rsquo;t fight city hall&hellip; or your innate circadian rhythm.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I have been living in the U.S. Central time zone and trading futures for about 15 years. As you know those markets went electronic to 23/5 about 10 years ago.
&ldquo;Depending on the market, I have tried different trading patterns. Gold, for example, will often move following Far East market opens. My circadian rhythm could never adjust comfortably to that schedule.
&ldquo;Even though the federal bond market trades 23/5, the major bond futures market volume moves occur within about an hour before and an hour after the NYSE open. That has proven workable for my wide-awake trading style.
&ldquo;Of course, we can trade with cash 24/7. We have been doing that forever, and the facsimiles, first checks and then credit cards, worked mightily to compete with cash. They have done that well, as long as there is electricity available.
&ldquo;I believe that major trades are initiated by human traders. Bots are everywhere, but I sense that they largely ape human trades and trends. We trader optimists still get up in the morning, get our bearings and trade while we are fresh.
<a id="object"></a>
&ldquo;My own experience tells me that even though there is now a worldwide din of 24/7 news, I still have my own preferred hours and days for accessing it. Present market hours are simply a reflection of human behavioral patterns. Arbitrary schedules do not drive human behavior.
&ldquo;There is likely a growing demand for extended trading windows, but the dominant factor will be the daylight hours of the major trading centers.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Why would you object to using the proper names for Italian cities?&rdquo; a reader writes of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/tiktok-vs-tv#5">Dave&rsquo;s misgivings</a> yesterday &ldquo;Milano and Torino are the Italian names for those cities.
&ldquo;Milan and Turin are Anglicized versions of those names; when broadcasting from Italy, why gag when they opt for the proper names? Almost no one who speaks any Italian would object to using their proper names.
&ldquo;One of the benefits of living in one of the smaller towns in Italy, such as Asti, is that they have never become well known enough to be stuck with a corrupted (or Anglicized) name.&rdquo;
Emily: My best guess is using the Italian names &mdash; after decades of using the Anglicized names in English-speaking media &mdash; sounds, well, pretentious.
I&rsquo;ll add my two cents on the media&rsquo;s about-face on Ukraine&rsquo;s capital city Kiev, for example, which is now Kyiv. (Also, Zelensky or Zelenskyy?)
And don&rsquo;t get me started on the media&rsquo;s flip-flopping on the pronunciation of &ldquo;Qatar&rdquo; during the War in Afghanistan and, later, during the 2022 World Cup.
So, on that matter of little consequence, reader, I wish you a happy Friday and a relaxing weekend. Take care&hellip;
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 Bullets hero Carton boxes labelled as different investment products

shutterstock 2241209651

“Look at all this volatility… and learn how to be calm as an investor,” James Altucher urged during our live event from Paradigm headquarters. 

5 BULLETS: The New Diversification

The New Diversification

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />TikTok? That&rsquo;s SO 2020
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Stuff you can&rsquo;t make up: &ldquo;The Biden campaign will stay on TikTok even after President Biden signed a bill Wednesday that could lead to a potential ban of the app,&rdquo; according to Axios.
Citing an anonymous campaign flack, the site reports, &ldquo;The Biden campaign is continuing to use the app to engage with voters online, particularly young people, and to ensure their message is being seen amid a high-stakes election.&rdquo;
So that&rsquo;s the reason the original proposal for a six-month deadline was pushed out to nine. TikTok can now carry on under Chinese ownership past Election Day. Not until 2025 will parent company ByteDance have to sell TikTok&rsquo;s U.S. operations or shut them down.
The narrative on Capitol Hill is that ByteDance is controlled by the Chinese government, who use TikTok as a tool to spy on and propagandize young, vulnerable Americans. There&rsquo;s zero evidence to support that narrative, but lack of evidence has never stopped politicians before.
Then again, as we said from the get-go, the agenda isn&rsquo;t about just TikTok. The bill gives the president &mdash; including a future president Trump, we&rsquo;ll point out &mdash; the authority to ban apps and websites he determines are controlled by a &ldquo;foreign adversary.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5RxNCK4ZT3onTF2gIquSQj/d9b4f7f55e9e4907d55c1966cd409108/DavidTweet.png" alt="david tweet" width="540px" />
All that said, TikTok promises to fight the law in court. "The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side,&rdquo; says TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. &ldquo;Rest assured, we aren't going anywhere."
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s the thing: The free market is already solving the &ldquo;problem&rdquo; that has the Beltway class wringing its hands. Young people are walking away from TikTok.
The number of new users has reached a plateau. And most of those new users are folks in their 30s and 40s.
Thus, as the cool kids often mistype it, TikTok is being taken over by &ldquo;teh olds&rdquo; &mdash; in other words, exactly what happened to Facebook a few years back. And so the Zoomers are seeking out something new.
Something new, as it happens, might be a platform called &ldquo;Nospace.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Like MySpace and the early years of Facebook,&rdquo; says a New York Post article, &ldquo;Nospace users will have personal and customizable profile pages where they can share casual updates on what they&rsquo;re up to.&rdquo;
Says Nospace&rsquo;s 27-year-old founder Tiffany Zhong: &ldquo;What I see right now is all social media is just media &mdash; it&rsquo;s not social anymore. Everyone is ogling at each other&rsquo;s lives and personalities, but no one is engaging with them,&rdquo; she tells the Bustle website.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6HXixbtd2G2kaPkv4FwqNU/cd7c3088b438d7e7293d99c9b7c738b0/Nospace.jpg" alt="no space" width="540px" />

&ldquo;All these other apps these days, it&rsquo;s just algorithmic,&rdquo; Zhong says. &ldquo;A lot of posts just get pushed down if you don&rsquo;t get engagement.&rdquo;
Nospace is set for launch this summer. There&rsquo;s a waitlist of over 380,000.
No, it&rsquo;s not publicly traded. Presumably Ms. Zhong has collected ample startup money from the usual Silicon Valley venture capital suspects.
And so we cast our eyes elsewhere today for investing opportunities in media&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" /> TikTok vs. TV
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Consider this: &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s going to win the streaming war?&rdquo; feels like a very 2017 question.
So said Paradigm Press publisher Matt Insley on our internal e-chat this week. &ldquo;The real war,&rdquo; he asserts, &ldquo;is between that thing on your wall that funnels pre-selected shows to you versus that thing in your hand that&rsquo;s producing very &lsquo;sticky&rsquo; peer-to-peer content.&rdquo;
Intriguing point. Especially this year.
Of course, long-term the answer is obvious: TV as older folks know it is going the way of the telegraph.
Even when it comes to live sports &mdash; the last realm where &ldquo;linear TV&rdquo; still has an advantage &mdash; ESPN will offer its full suite of cable channels as a stand-alone streaming service next year, no cable bundle required.
Linear TV is a field your editor happens to follow closely &mdash; seeing as I worked in broadcast news for over 20 years, until 2007.
I timed my exit just right. Sometime around 2009, I recall reading an article by Bob Long &mdash; a well-known figure in the trade who&rsquo;d just retired after a stint as news director at KNBC in Los Angeles. He wrote something to the effect of this: &ldquo;My son is 18 and he&rsquo;ll never own a TV. His dad&rsquo;s a news director, his mom is an anchor and he doesn&rsquo;t give a s*** about what we do for a living.&rdquo;
Long&rsquo;s son would be about 33 now. And think of all the people younger than him.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That said&hellip; we&rsquo;ll invoke the Warren Buffett analogy we cited yesterday and tell you there&rsquo;s one more puff to be had from the cigar butt that is linear TV.
Linear TV still has a lock on older folks &mdash; who happen to be the folks who vote in the highest numbers. Between now and Nov. 5, broadcast TV will thrive from an incoming tsunami of campaign advertising cash.
It&rsquo;s a reliable cycle in the broadcast biz. So reliable that when Oprah Winfrey walked away from her syndicated TV show in 2011, many stations decided against filling her 4:00 p.m. timeslot with another talk show. They launched 4:00 p.m. newscasts instead &mdash; knowing the 2012 elections were looming and that newscasts are where campaigns can reach the most politically engaged citizens.
Of course, this is all well-known to Wall Street analysts who cover the half-dozen &ldquo;pure play&rdquo; operators of local TV stations.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But here&rsquo;s what Wall Street hasn&rsquo;t caught onto yet, and where you could seize the advantage: This year&rsquo;s tsunami of campaign cash will be geographically concentrated.
That is, you want to zero in on the companies whose station portfolios give you maximum exposure to the seven &ldquo;battleground states&rdquo; where the Electoral College will be decided in 2024 &mdash; because that&rsquo;s where the most money will be spent.
We&rsquo;re talking about Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada. Arizona is especially attractive because it also has an open Senate seat that pollsters rate a tossup.
With that in mind, two names stand out&hellip;
<ul>
<li>TEGNA Inc. (TGNA): Tegna was spun out of the Gannett newspaper chain about a decade ago (hence the goofy sort-of-an-anagram name). It owns the NBC affiliates in Atlanta, Phoenix and Charlotte &mdash; along with the Fox affiliate in Tucson and a couple of medium-market stations in Pennsylvania</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Gray Television Inc. (GTN): Gray rolled up several smaller station operators over the last 20 years or so. It owns the CBS affiliates in Atlanta, Phoenix, Tucson and Charlotte; the Fox affiliate in Las Vegas; and a cluster of eight medium- and small-market stations in Wisconsin and Michigan.</li>
</ul>
Note well: This might be the last presidential cycle in which this investment thesis holds up.
By the time we get to 2028, a substantial portion of the linear TV audience will have, as the saying goes, &ldquo;aged out.&rdquo; TV will be defeated once and for all by TikTok &mdash; or, likely as not, some other streaming platform.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Markets Today: Congressional Insider Blindsided?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Sometimes those notorious congressional insider trades don&rsquo;t work out as planned&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/55o3eIQQ1kX8AdpKlKYpyO/8f77f9c6af3a76a35c7473ec1d618d57/NancyTweet.png" alt="nancy tweet" width="540px" />
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Texas) took a position in Facebook/Instagram parent Meta earlier this month &mdash; at a time it appeared the TikTok ban was stalled in the Senate.
Those buys don&rsquo;t look too hot at the moment. After the closing bell yesterday, Meta reported its quarterly numbers. They were great. First-quarter revenue set a record. But the company also projected AI spending for the year that&rsquo;s higher than previously forecast &mdash; spending that will take time to show up on the bottom line.
With that, Meta shares tumbled 10.6% today.
Ouch. Recall that Meta is one of only two stocks &mdash; the other being Nvidia &mdash; propping up the major averages this year. At one point, they accounted for 43% of the S&amp;P 500&rsquo;s year-to-date gains.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> So yes, Meta is a major drag on the stock market today &mdash; but hardly the only one.
Before the opening bell, the Commerce Department issued its initial estimate of first-quarter GDP. If these figures are to be believed, the economy grew at a meager 1.6% clip annualized. No one among dozens of Wall Street economists expected a number that low; the average guess was 2.6%. Worse, the quarter-over-quarter growth rate has declined for three straight quarters.
Nor does the bad news end there. Included in this report are several estimates of inflation. All of them are up from the final quarter of last year, and not by a little. The report specifically cites massive increases in the costs of health care and insurance.
This is the nightmare scenario Paradigm&rsquo;s own Jim Rickards has been warning about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/here-come-the-70s-again">since last summer</a> &mdash; 1970s-style &ldquo;stagflation&rdquo; in which the economy stagnates but inflation continues to ravage everyday folks&rsquo; finances.
After this report, the betting in the futures market is that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates only once this year &mdash; and not until December.
So much for all that giddy optimism at the start of the year about six rate cuts &mdash; or even the muted optimism last month about three.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Thus, no surprise, Wall Street took a spill today.
Not a catastrophic spill, but a spill nonetheless. The day ended better than it began, as it turns out. The S&amp;P 500 never fell below 5,000 and closed at 5,048.
It&rsquo;s bonds that really got clobbered &ndash; prices down, yields up. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is back above 4.7% for the first time since early November.
Precious metals are up modestly, gold at $2,332 and silver at $27.36. Crude is approaching $84. Bitcoin is approaching $65,000.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Wokery in the Workplace Is SO 2020
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the record: The trend of &ldquo;wokery&rdquo; in the technology workplace was snuffed out last week. By Google, no less.
First, let&rsquo;s rewind to 2020: Much of corporate America was embracing &ldquo;social justice&rdquo; causes, with Silicon Valley leading the way. About the only CEO standing against the herd was Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong &mdash; promising to keep his firm &ldquo;mission-focused.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The reason,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;is that while I think these efforts are well intentioned, they have the potential to destroy a lot of value at most companies, both by being a distraction, and by creating internal division.&rdquo;
Armstrong was roasted in The New York Times and The Washington Post. The mainstream portrayed Coinbase as a cesspool of bigotry.
But Armstrong stood his ground. As we previously chronicled, he offered severance packages of up to six months&rsquo; pay for employees who objected to the policy. &ldquo;Life is too short to work at a company that you aren&rsquo;t excited about,&rdquo; he said. Roughly 60 people, or about 5% of the workforce, took the buyout.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Fast-forward to this month. All of a sudden, Google is &ldquo;mission-first.&rdquo;
A group of employees held a sit-in to protest the company&rsquo;s contracts with the Israeli government. Twenty-eight of them were fired.
"Physically impeding other employees' work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior," said a company spokesman in a statement.
&ldquo;This is a huge escalation and a change in how Google has responded to worker criticisms,&rdquo; said one of the fired 28.
<a id="5"></a>
Look, I actually sympathize with the cause these people profess to support. But if your employer is doing something you find morally objectionable, isn&rsquo;t it better to, you know, go find another employer? Google is well within its rights to give these people the heave-ho.
And just wait till they discover that because they were fired &ldquo;for cause,&rdquo; they might be ineligible to collect unemployment&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Great Moments in Bureaucracy, Italian Edition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> From the Department of Problems We Didn&rsquo;t Know Existed&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3k8C8bdl2UIlUFtDR4uBGb/1d6fbb7e008ef4004145492034662b76/JamesTweet.png" alt="james tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;For many, a late-night gelato is a part of Italian culture,&rdquo; reports Sky News, &ldquo;but this is in danger under a new law being introduced in the city.
&ldquo;A legislative starting paper has been filed by the city's local government, and if passed it could see late-night ice creams banned as soon as next month.&rdquo;
And not just ice cream: All take-out food and drink would be proibito after 12:30 a.m. on weeknights and 1:30 on weekends.
For city fathers, this is the sledgehammer solution to the problem of noise stirred up by late-night revelers. "The goal is to seek a balance between socializing and entertainment, and the peace and tranquility of residents,&rdquo; says Deputy Mayor Marco Granelli.
Colleague Sean Ring of <a href="https://rudeawakening.info">Rude Awakening</a> fame, who&rsquo;s called northern Italy home the last two years, is not altogether surprised. &ldquo;Honestly, Milan is my least favorite place here,&rdquo; he tells me. &ldquo;This is especially ludicrous.&rdquo;
Speaking of Italy&rsquo;s second-largest city: Milan, along with Cortina d&rsquo;Ampezzo, is hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics. Will NBC label it &ldquo;Milano&rdquo; the way the network called Turin &ldquo;Torino&rdquo; in 2006? Gag&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
P.S. I know I promised something today about the Biden administration&rsquo;s attempts to electrify freight transport. But the word count is spiraling out of control &mdash; and Emily already has a full plate for tomorrow&rsquo;s edition. We&rsquo;ll get to it next week&hellip;

shutterstock 1795552729

So that’s the reason the original six-month deadline on a TikTok ban was pushed out to nine… 

5 BULLETS: TikTok vs. TV

TikTok vs. TV

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />James Altucher&rsquo;s Redemption Story
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Just because you&rsquo;re a success in business, there&rsquo;s no guarantee you&rsquo;ll be a success at investing.
Maybe you already know that. Maybe you already know it the hard way.
Many readers have come to us over the years because they accumulated a small pile running a business&hellip; lost some of that pile when they trusted it to professional money managers... lost some more when they decided to go the do-it-yourself route&hellip; and finally turned for guidance to independent operators outside the Wall Street ecosystem like ourselves.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Paradigm&rsquo;s own James Altucher can relate. Oh, can he ever relate.
As you might already know, James achieved considerable success in the mid-1990s by building the first websites for corporate clients like American Express, HBO and Disney.
Then he sold his business. He made more than a small pile. &ldquo;I thought I must be smart since I sold a business,&rdquo; he recalls. &ldquo;I was so smart I could now invest my money.&rdquo;
Wrong. &ldquo;I lost my home. I lost everything. I lost my mind for a while.&rdquo;
And so he plunged into educating himself. &ldquo;I immersed myself in investing. I read every book I could find. I spoke to many investors, I studied my mistakes, I experimented, I analyzed, I studied again and tried to fix my problems, I read more and I experimented more.&rdquo;
All that reading and experimentation &mdash; and the mistakes &mdash; paid off. In time, he was running a hedge fund. He was investing in private equity.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And most important, he discovered how to get an edge on Wall Street&rsquo;s conventional wisdom.
&ldquo;I noticed that most professional investors were not bad, but they were not good either. They worked for big investment companies, emulated the style of those companies, didn&rsquo;t really study the history of investing, and ultimately became solid, but mediocre investors.
&ldquo;That was true then and maybe even more true now. Everyone relies on newspaper headlines to give them advice on what to invest in. Too late. You have to find the investments and the strategies before the newspapers do.
&ldquo;EVERY investment style works. But you have to know how to apply it.&rdquo;
Two of the most important styles in the stock market might be familiar to you already &mdash; value investing and growth investing.
But James has an angle that will probably surprise you. Let&rsquo;s unpack that in Bullet No. 2&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />&ldquo;Growth&rdquo; and &ldquo;Value&rdquo; Redefined
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;People think they can read a book about Warren Buffett and then learn how to value invest. This is the most difficult form of investing,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;The idea is to buy a stock that is trading very cheap relative to its earnings.
&ldquo;For example: if Exxon is trading for $100 and they have profits of $10 per share then that is a P/E of 10. That means their &lsquo;earnings yield&rsquo; is 10% ($10/$100). Since 10% is significantly higher than federal interest rates of 5%, then Exxon might be a value play.&rdquo;
Emphasis on the word might, James cautions.
&ldquo;You have to ask: What are the earnings yields of other oil companies? If one is 15% is that a better investment? How stable is that earnings yield? What are the risks that oil is taken over by solar power or batteries? How are they dealing with that risk?
&ldquo;Will that 10% earnings yield go up or down in a recession? Is this recession-proof? Does Exxon or XYZ oil company have a consistent dividend? When did they last move that dividend down?
&ldquo;All of this is incorporated into the risk and how you compare the earnings yield to the federal interest rates (which are considered riskless so that is the benchmark value investors use when evaluating the risk versus the reward).&rdquo;
Not easy!
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, &ldquo;Growth investing is not the opposite of value investing as many seem to think,&rdquo; says James. Rather, it&rsquo;s a form of value investing.
Example: What Warren Buffett likes to call &ldquo;cigar butt investing.&rdquo;
&ldquo;A cigar butt is a cigar you see on the ground and you can pick it up and it still has one last puff in it,&rdquo; James explains.
&ldquo;When Buffett bought shares for the first time in a little-known shirt company called Berkshire Hathaway in the &rsquo;60s, he was doing cigar butt investing.
&ldquo;How come? Because he thought liquidating the factories would give him more money than the entire value of the company. He thought that Berkshire Hathaway was riskless because worst case he could buy the whole company and liquidate it and keep the extra money.&rdquo;
Here&rsquo;s the thing: &ldquo;Growth investing is sort of like this but you use math to find the cigar butts,&rdquo; says James.
&ldquo;You find industries that are growing exponentially. You look for the stocks in those sectors that might have declined because of market conditions. You filter to find the ones with good management teams and a growing group of hedge fund investors.
&ldquo;You buy a basket of these stocks since nobody knows who the winners will be.&rdquo;
Case in point: &ldquo;We knew in 2002 that the internet was growing exponentially in users. But we also knew a lot of internet companies were BS. Hard to pick the winners.
&ldquo;No problem, you could&rsquo;ve had 10,000 losers but if you put $1,000 into AMZN you would&rsquo;ve made millions. Without splits, $1 in AMZN would be around $120,000 today. Amazing!&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> There you go. Amazon was a deep value play in the early 2000s. Who knew?
A flip question, for which James has a serious answer: &ldquo;Only people who said, &lsquo;The internet is growing exponentially&rsquo; AND &lsquo;I need to buy a basket of these stocks&rsquo; AND &lsquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter what their earnings are&rsquo; (AMZN had never made a dollar at that point) because it&rsquo;s growing so fast they will eventually have billions in earnings.&rdquo;
Indeed, Amazon&rsquo;s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) in 2023 was $85.5 billion. And that&rsquo;s up 58% from the year before!
OK, OK, you say, but where&rsquo;s the exponential growth now?
His short answer: &ldquo;AI, genomics, electric cars, solar power, robotics, 3D printing, crypto, etc. Exposure to these is a great bet.&rdquo;
He&rsquo;ll have a longer answer tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. EDT when he reveals his exclusive playbook for the second half of 2024. This will be a LIVE Zoom call where he&rsquo;ll field reader questions. And he&rsquo;ll be giving away $1,000 to a lucky reader every minute while the call is underway. (We&rsquo;re slotting 60 minutes, but we&rsquo;ll up the $60k total if we run past 3:00.)
Slots are filling fast, and Zoom has a 10,000 viewer limit &mdash; <a href="https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pigPYUeQR4ilXyBiUEzbDw">so you&rsquo;ll want to secure your spot right away at this link</a>. Registration takes all of 15 seconds.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Musk&rsquo;s Still Got It (Whatever &ldquo;It&rdquo; Is)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Whether it&rsquo;s Steve-Jobsian marketing savvy or sheer carnival-barker chutzpah, Elon Musk still has it.
Tesla reported its quarterly numbers after the closing bell yesterday afternoon. They were terrible. Not only did profits fall short of Wall Street analyst estimates, they were down by more than half year-over-year. Sales, meanwhile, recorded their biggest slide in over a decade.
And then&hellip; Elon Musk hopped on the conference call with analysts and promised an accelerated launch of more affordable models, with production underway by early next year.
The details were thin, but no matter: After the first hour of trading this morning, TSLA shares were up over 13%.
The lesson as James Altucher&rsquo;s senior stock analyst Bob Byrne sees it: &ldquo;The unfortunate thing about news, be it company specific or economic, even if we know what the news is going to be, It&rsquo;s impossible to say how investors will react.&rdquo;
One thing&rsquo;s for sure: Four years after he began falling from grace with the power elite &mdash; it started when he defied COVID lockdown orders at his California factory &mdash; there are plenty of investors still buying what Elon Musk is selling.
Whether that will still be the case when TSLA makes its much-delayed &ldquo;robotaxi&rdquo; announcement on Aug. 8 remains to be seen. No one on the Paradigm team has a Tesla recommendation right now, either long or short&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Tesla&rsquo;s glow is not extending to the market as a whole: As we write, all three major U.S. stock indexes are in the red, the S&amp;P 500 down about a third of a percent at 5,052.
The next &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; stock set to report its numbers is Facebook parent Meta, after the closing bell today. Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet follow tomorrow.
Precious metals look positively tame after a couple weeks&rsquo; volatility &mdash; gold at $2,326 and silver at $27.23. Crude is back below $83 after the release of the Energy Department&rsquo;s weekly inventory numbers.
Bitcoin&rsquo;s latest rally didn&rsquo;t have any staying power; at last check it&rsquo;s back to $64,612. With the 2024 halving now in the rearview, James Altucher says it&rsquo;s time to give the Bitcoin mining stocks another look.
&ldquo;These stocks have gotten crushed over the past month as investors know that the halving will mean that miners are soon going to start earning fewer Bitcoin,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But if the price of Bitcoin doubles, as I expect it will, the miners could turn into a great investment opportunity.&rdquo;
[Reminder: Tomorrow during his live Zoom call, James will discuss what he calls &ldquo;the one crypto trend you should be watching right now &mdash; and how it could hand you 800%-plus returns in the coming 14 months.&rdquo; Again, it&rsquo;s tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. EDT. <a href="https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pigPYUeQR4ilXyBiUEzbDw">Registration is still available right here</a>.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Truth About Captchas
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Even on not-serious news stories, the corporate media fails you.
The quirky &ldquo;A-Hed&rdquo; story on the front page of today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal is all about <a href="https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/captcha-not-robot-tests-harder-5129caf2?mod=itp_wsj">how captchas are getting weird</a>.
Captchas are those irritating &ldquo;select all images with bicycles&rdquo; things that websites do to make you prove you&rsquo;re a person and not a bot trying to mess with the site.
Now it seems they&rsquo;re getting more complex. &ldquo;Match the number of rocks with the number on the left,&rdquo; for instance. Or, &ldquo;Click on the one that can NOT live underwater.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> What the Journal doesn&rsquo;t tell you is that the website already knows you&rsquo;re a human.
We&rsquo;ll spotlight James Altucher one more time today: Going back to at least last summer, he&rsquo;s exposed the real reasons captchas exist &mdash; to train AIs.
Here&rsquo;s how he explained it: &ldquo;&lsquo;Bots&rsquo; have a tendency to click the exact center of an image so as soon as you click, the system knows you are imperfect enough to be a human.
&ldquo;But when you click the five out of eight (or three out of eight or two out of eight or whatever) images that contain bicycles, your response and those images are fed into a MASSIVE database of images with the label &lsquo;bicycle&rsquo; or &lsquo;no bicycle.&rsquo;
&ldquo;The real purpose of a captcha is not to determine if you are human or not but to label billions of images with data that are used by computer vision systems. Gotcha!&rdquo;
And so it makes perfect sense that captchas are now asking you to perform more sophisticated tasks: The AIs need to be trained on more sophisticated tasks.
(Yeah, I know. Where should they send you your check for your time and trouble? Dream on&hellip;}
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: 24/7 Trading, Gigawatt Datacenters
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The consensus among our readers who wrote in yesterday &mdash; although it&rsquo;s hardly unanimous &mdash; is opposition to the notion of 24/7 stock trading (as the New York Stock Exchange is now exploring.)
&ldquo;Yes I would trade overnight,&rdquo; says one. But she&rsquo;s in the minority. &ldquo;Not for me. Too old, need my sleep!&rdquo; says a representative of the majority.
Another: &ldquo;Hello. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Totally opposed to any extension of trading hours. Goodbye.&rdquo;
&ldquo;A 24/7 stock market is a bad Idea!&rdquo; says a third. &ldquo;Allowing the market to close at a given time, enables traders/investors to review the day&rsquo;s activities and make plans for the coming day. Having markets closed on weekends and holidays allows investors and those working in the financial world to relax and enjoy the fruits of their labor.
&ldquo;24/7 markets is a stupid idea, and could somehow create new financial scam opportunities! I see NO upside to it!&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> One reader splits the middle: &ldquo;I'm retired now,&rdquo; he writes, &ldquo;but when I was working (and even now sometimes) I might be reading something from one of my investing services later in the evening and think: &lsquo;Wow! I'd better buy some XYZ, or sell ABC or perhaps exit an options trade!&rsquo; but the market was already closed for the day.
&ldquo;This has actually been a mixed blessing because sometimes I might &mdash; after having time to think it over &mdash; decide the next day not to follow my first impression.
&ldquo;Nonetheless, I wouldn't mind the exchanges staying open to maybe 10 p.m. on weekdays (but like Gunner I need my sleep too).&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, a couple of readers weighed in on the prospect of a datacenter requiring 1 gigawatt of power to operate.
&ldquo;What a great terrorist target!&rdquo; says one. &ldquo;Just imagine all the data destroyed (hopefully including our IRS accounts) by an action as simple as cutting off the cooling system and letting the memories overheat and self-destruct.&rdquo;
Another reader has a suggestion about how all these datacenters feeding hungry AI applications will get their electricity: &ldquo;Three (four, actually) words: small modular (nuclear) reactors.&rdquo;
SMRs are indeed one solution on our editors&rsquo; radar.
We&rsquo;re going to need all the solutions we can get, given the White House&rsquo;s latest plans to electrify freight transport. More about that in tomorrow&rsquo;s edition&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 749993404

Just because you’re a success in business, there’s no guarantee you’ll be a success at investing. James Altucher can relate… 

5 BULLETS: “If You’re So Smart, Why Are You Broke?”

“If You’re So Smart, Why Are You Broke?”

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Shoplifter&rsquo;s Investing Secret
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />With gold and Bitcoin down modestly from their all-time highs&hellip; today&rsquo;s as good a day as any to explore a different kind of asset class to preserve your money&rsquo;s ever-dwindling purchasing power.
Our own James Altucher began exploring this asset class at a tender age &mdash; although it wasn&rsquo;t an auspicious start.
&ldquo;I was 9 years old and convinced my life was over,&rdquo; he recalls, sheepishly. &ldquo;I had just shoved six packs of football cards into my pocket at the KB Toys and Hobby Shop at the local mall in New Jersey.&rdquo;
Long story short, he was caught shoplifting. &ldquo;How could you do something so stupid?&rdquo; his grandfather asked as they walked out of the store.
&ldquo;I had to have the cards. They were the key to the material success I knew I wanted, even at a young age. Football cards were the coolest thing to have in school, one of the most valuable currencies on the playground.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> To be clear, we&rsquo;re not talking about just football cards. We&rsquo;re talking about football cards as a subset of the asset class known as &ldquo;collectibles.&rdquo;
Collectibles encompass everything from rare coins to trading cards to comic books to bobbleheads.
Like every other asset class, collectibles have their bull and bear markets. James has seen more than a few over the decades.
When he was a schoolboy, &ldquo;It was the early years of sports card mania &mdash; when the price of sports cards could seem to go nowhere but up.
&ldquo;Although enthusiasm for trading cards dropped off for two decades between the 1990s and 2010s, the easy money of the pandemic shifted the market back into full swing.
&ldquo;That is &mdash; until inflation picked up in 2021. The Fed began to raise interest rates shortly after, leading to a sell-off in risky assets like cryptocurrency, tech stocks, biotech and baseball cards.&rdquo;
Which brings us to an intriguing point&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Collectibles like coins and trading cards do not make money the way that some other investments do,&rdquo; James goes on.
&ldquo;When interest rates are high, people can earn more interest in a savings account or bonds. So they won't want to pay high prices for collectibles that just sit on a shelf and look nice.
However, these investments can start to look appealing again once interest rates begin to plateau.&rdquo;
Which they are now &mdash; even if the Fed intends to keep rates &ldquo;higher for longer&rdquo; than conventional wisdom on Wall Street had it at the start of the year.
But while the short-term performance of collectibles is tied to interest rates, &ldquo;long-term investors might be less concerned with this,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;Historically, collectibles have been one of the best-performing asset classes and have even outperformed the market in some circumstances.
&ldquo;If you have the luxury of a long time horizon, collectibles could be worth a look at this point in the cycle.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> If you have limited investment capital, James says you can explore online collectibles markets such as Rally &mdash; where you can &ldquo;buy fractional shares in extremely rare and priceless collectibles.
&ldquo;Although this significantly reduces flexibility to sell, it also provides exposure to the high-end of the market that has historically seen the best returns.&rdquo;
And if you want a little seed money to start your journey in collectibles, James is giving away $1,000 every minute for 60 minutes on Thursday afternoon.
That&rsquo;s when he&rsquo;s hosting a live Zoom call to unveil his investing playbook for the second half of 2024. Among the topics he&rsquo;ll cover&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The ONE crypto trend you should watch post-halving &mdash; and why its rise could hand you returns as high as 1,695% in 14 months</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>How a single announcement from Apple is going to send AI even further into the stratosphere in the second half of 2024 (if you have an iPhone, you&rsquo;ll want to hear this)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>How a tiny, often ignored sector of the market could soon hand you gains 2x bigger than tech giants like Nvidia in the coming months.</li>
</ul>
<a id="2"></a>
It all gets underway about 48 hours from now &mdash; Thursday at 2:00 p.m. EDT.
Be advised, Zoom has a cap of 10,000 participants per call, so you&rsquo;ll want to secure your spot right away. <a href="https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pigPYUeQR4ilXyBiUEzbDw">You can register for free at this link in only 15 seconds &mdash; submit your name and email address, and you&rsquo;re in</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />A 24/7 Stock Market?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Crypto trades round the clock &mdash; why not stocks?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4cVNfcXSWY5tQPsRmOE4QQ/6fda85b5661eb08f970e1657b9a0c537/FT-4-23.png" alt="financial times" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The New York Stock Exchange is polling market participants on the merits of trading stocks around the clock as regulators scrutinize an application for the first 24/7 bourse,&rdquo; says the Financial Times.
This concept exasperates Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner at least as much as the guy in the FT&rsquo;s stock photo.
&ldquo;Sure,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;the younger generation might love to trade meme stocks and manage their crypto holdings at 3:00 a.m. But I need what precious sleep I can get. The last thing I want is my brokerage account pinging me with price alerts at all hours&hellip;
&ldquo;A market that never closes would kill the excitement and anticipation of the opening bell &mdash; and the great FOMO buying sprees that have accompanied so many power hours between 3:00 p.m. and the close. A 24/7 market would lose much of the drama and personality that make the day-to-day grind so captivating.&rdquo;
A compromise of sorts might be 24/5 trading. Treasuries, major currencies and the big stock index futures already do that.
If the NYSE doesn&rsquo;t go round-the-clock, hedge-fund manager and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen might set up a new exchange that does; he&rsquo;s already applied for SEC approval.
Do you have an opinion? Would you buy or sell overnight? Drop us a line: <a href="mailto:feedback@paradigmpressroom.com">feedback@paradigmpressroom.com</a>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for the market action today, it&rsquo;s shaping up to be a second-straight session in the green.
At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is up 1.1% to 5,066. The dip below 5,000 didn&rsquo;t last long. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s gain is stronger, the Dow&rsquo;s weaker. Treasury yields are pulling back.
Gold was in danger of cracking below $2,300 early in the day, but as we write it&rsquo;s back to $2,325. Silver&rsquo;s up a dime to $27.23. Crude sits a hair below $83. Bitcoin is stuck below $67,000.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Zuck Frets About AI&rsquo;s Energy Suck
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Long before AI reaches its full potential, it will run up against the limits of available electricity.
Paradigm tech authority Ray Blanco sounded the alarm on this issue at the start of the year. As we noted last week, the mainstream is <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/blackouts-powered-by-ai">starting to wake up</a>. And now Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is weighing in.
Speaking last week on a podcast called Dwarkesh, Zuck said there will come a time when further investments in AI will no longer be cost-effective. "But I actually think before we hit that, you're going to run into energy constraints.
"If we wanted to stand up some massive facility to power that is a very long-term project. I think [some people will] do it, but I don't think this is something that can be quite as magical as 'you get a level of AI, get a bunch of capital and put it in [a big data center].'"
No, it&rsquo;s not. Zuck talked about a time when someone will build a 1-gigawatt datacenter &mdash; acknowledging it &ldquo;would be the size of a meaningful nuclear power plant only going toward training a model."
Yikes. By one estimate, a gigawatt is what it takes to power a city of 750,000.
As far as we can tell, Zuck&rsquo;s comments were picked up only by one trade-press website called Data Center Dynamics. So this topic is still struggling to reach mainstream awareness.
The phenomenon is investable, as we said last week. Paradigm&rsquo;s value-and-dividend hound Zach Scheidt recommended a power play recently in Lifetime Income Report. Our other editors are seeking out additional opportunities, so stay tuned&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The IRS, Powered by AI (Uh-Oh)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, the IRS is looking to leverage AI for its own sketchy purposes.
IRS commissioner Danny Werfel &mdash; not to be confused with 1996 Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel &mdash; spoke last week at a conference in Washington. He described two ways in which the taxman could put AI to use &mdash; virtual chatbots to answer taxpayer questions and, of course, running AI algorithms to ensure compliance with the tax code.
Although Werfel promises in-person and telephone help will still be available to people who want it, &ldquo;We're going to need an AI-powered solution to help taxpayers get the answer that they need.&rdquo;
Yeah, and how&rsquo;s that going to work when the AI &ldquo;hallucinates&rdquo; and gives the taxpayer a wrong answer? That could get interesting.
And when it comes to enforcement, Werfel says he thinks of &ldquo;a chess analogy to where we are going to be assessing some of the complexity of how money is moved across different subsidiaries, into tax shelters and holding companies&hellip; A human makes the decision, ultimately, when we do these types of efforts on the enforcement side, but we want the computer essentially helping us be a better chess player.&rdquo;
That makes it sound as if the agency is going to go after gazillionaires engaged in uber-complicated tax avoidance schemes. But if history is any guide, the IRS will simply use AI to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-irs-expands-its-target-list">amp up its shakedowns of self-employed folks and small-business owners</a>.
The good news is that there&rsquo;s a bill in Congress dubbed the &ldquo;No AI Audits Act.&rdquo; The bad news is that it has only two sponsors&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: What Do &ldquo;Left&rdquo; and &ldquo;Right&rdquo; Mean Anymore?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/abolish-the-presidency-says-altucher#2">the &ldquo;Everyone Is a Spy&rdquo; legislation</a> spotlighted in yesterday&rsquo;s Bullet No. 2, we heard from a member of our Omega Wealth Circle&hellip;
&ldquo;I saw <a href="https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1182/vote_118_2_00150.htm">the list</a> of how all 100 senators voted on the bill to extend the FISA spy authority, and it was clearly non-partisan, at least in the red-blue sense.
&ldquo;Of the 60 votes in favor, the split was 28 D-30 R. Of the 34 votes against, the split was 17 D-16 R. And of the six who were absent or abstained, 3 D-3 R
&ldquo;Aside from noting how odd this looks, I don't know what else to say.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Matt Taibbi weighs in on the &ldquo;weekend wipeout in Congress for the war-and-spying crowd&rdquo; at his Racket News Substack site: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been bizarre watching politicians and press keep up the pretense that terms like &lsquo;left&rsquo; or &lsquo;right&rsquo; still have significance, when it&rsquo;s so obvious that the only things in the Trump era that still matter are tribal considerations.&rdquo;
Put tribal considerations aside, and the lines in this case become fairly clear: The 34 no votes were a grab-bag of liberals (Ron Wyden) and conservatives (Mike Lee) for whom the Fourth Amendment still matters, at least now and then. The 60 yes votes were dominated by deep-state douchebags like Mark Warner, Tom Cotton, Tammy Duckworth, and Marco Rubio.
Taibbi, by the way, is catching on to <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2019/11/18/the-deep-state-is-even-scarier-than-you-think/">something I wrote about in 2019</a> &mdash; how the power structure in this country now resembles that of Oceania in Orwell&rsquo;s 1984:
<blockquote>The concept of &ldquo;adults in the room&rdquo; assumed central importance in the Trump years. After his election, citizens were assumed to be incapable of correct choices... Adults must be allowed to keep us safe. Who are the &ldquo;adults in the room&rdquo;? The numbers are probably like Orwell calculated in 1984, with a political establishment led by the 1% (Orwell had it at 2%, calling them the Inner Party) and administered by a nomenklatura of educated loyalists comprising a little over 10% of the population (the &ldquo;Outer Party&rdquo;). The Inner and Outer Parties Orwell described as the brain and hands of the state, surrounded by childlike prole-deplorables who make up the remaining 85% of the populace.</blockquote>
Alas, Taibbi&rsquo;s piece sits behind a paywall for now&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 83417044

Today is as good a day as any to explore a different kind of asset class to preserve your money’s ever-dwindling purchasing power.

5 BULLETS: The Shoplifter’s Investing Secret

The Shoplifter’s Investing Secret

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Abolish the Presidency, Says Altucher
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Wait, not everyone feels invested in The Most Important Presidential Election In History&trade;?
&ldquo;The share of voters who say they have high interest in the 2024 election has hit a nearly 20-year low at this point in a presidential race,&rdquo; says NBC News this morning&mdash; describing the results of a poll it commissioned.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/17UPNGmJLRbtwlMWXAfUKM/b5b853a200b82a0df9746c80b18b01e5/Election.png" alt="elections" width="540px" />
Gosh, interest was higher even in April 2012 &mdash; when Mitt Romney had all but sewn up the GOP nomination against an incumbent Barack Obama.
It was during the 2012 campaign cycle that Paradigm&rsquo;s out-of-the-box investor James Altucher penned a not-entirely facetious proposal to&hellip; simply&hellip; do away with the presidency.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I think the institution of the presidency has largely ruined my life and the lives of most other people,&rdquo; James wrote. Best, he said, to just abolish the whole thing.
&ldquo;First off, the Constitution doesn&rsquo;t even address the powers of the presidency until Article II,&rdquo; he pointed out. &ldquo;The Founders clearly thought the legislative branch was more important, i.e. the actual branch that creates laws, declares wars, etc.&rdquo;
Of course, the last time Congress actually declared war was during World War II. Ever since, it&rsquo;s punted on that weighty responsibility and handed it off to&hellip; the president.
Result? &ldquo;So the president, I guess, took &lsquo;actions&rsquo; in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada (??), and a dozen other places I would never want to step foot in,&rdquo; James wrote.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s such simple math: if you get rid of the presidency, millions of American children will live to be adults instead of dying on foreign soil. And millions of civilians in other countries would be left alone. Seems like a good deal.&rdquo;
But what about the military the president oversees, defending our way of life and whatnot? &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s really defending my way of life,&rdquo; James said pointedly. &ldquo;Not somebody fighting in a jungle in Vietnam or Afghanistan but global capitalism.
&ldquo;The more we trade and do business and support the economic development of third-world countries, the less likely they are to want to bomb us (which has happened once in 50 years and not by a country but by a terrorist group that we successfully fought more through seizing bank accounts than through military actions).&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Aside from running the military during wartime, making treaties and appointing Supreme Court justices, James wondered what a president does that&rsquo;s actually legal.
&ldquo;All of the other stuff is artificial,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;He can go to funerals. He can create new cabinet-level departments (Education, HUD, etc.) that require massive buildings and budgets and take away people from private industry to give them sinecure BS jobs that last forever. I guess he runs the CIA so we can spy on people. Like how we spied on people so we avoided 9/11. Errr...&rdquo;
Those are the highlights of James&rsquo; piece. You can read the whole thing <a href="https://jamesaltucher.com/blog/abolish-the-presidency-its-a-useless-job/">here</a> if you like (some of the pop-culture references are painfully dated)... but I imagine if you&rsquo;re a James Altucher subscriber you&rsquo;re much more interested in what he has to say today about AI, crypto and his other investing fortes.
<a id="2"></a>
Lucky you, he&rsquo;s convening a Q&amp;A session on Zoom this week &mdash; during which he&rsquo;ll be giving away $1,000 every minute for 60 minutes.
The discussion gets underway this Thursday at 2:00 p.m. EDT. As long as you&rsquo;re a registered viewer, you&rsquo;re eligible to win &mdash; and <a href="https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_pigPYUeQR4ilXyBiUEzbDw">to be a registered viewer you simply need to enter your name and email address on this form. Easy-peasy</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Everyone Is a Spy
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for the Congress&hellip; much has taken place since we signed off for the week on Friday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/wgOunHZEOXwNINLxwNcu3/4fb90753910c9105785e5285b2dc406f/GOP-DNC.jpg" alt="GOP + DNC" width="350px" />
Of particular interest for our Bullet No. 2 is this: If you run a convenience store or a gym or maybe you own some commercial property&hellip; the feds might one day dragoon you to spy on your customers or tenants.
Late Friday night the Senate followed the House&rsquo;s lead and voted 60-34 to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for two more years. Joe Biden immediately signed it into law.
Tucked into this legislation is a brand-new provision &mdash; what critics call the &ldquo;Everyone Is a Spy&rdquo; clause.
The feds now have the power to order tens of millions of small businesses with a Wi-Fi router to hand over their data stream on demand.
While hotels and restaurants are exempt, many other businesses are not.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> "An enormous range of businesses would still be fair game," protests a coalition of privacy and civil liberties groups &mdash; "including grocery stores, department stores, hardware stores, laundromats, barber shops, fitness centers, and &mdash; perhaps most disturbingly &mdash; commercial landlords that rent out the office space where tens of millions of Americans go to work every day, including news media headquarters, political campaign offices, advocacy and grassroots organizations, lobbying firms and law offices."
The language of the legislation is so broad that it could apply to &ldquo;anyone who could physically access a wire, a cable box Wi-Fi or a phone or a computer,&rdquo; a congressional staffer tells independent journalist Matt Taibbi.
Even cable installers, repairmen and house cleaners could be served with an FBI subpoena.
Oh, and they&rsquo;d be under a gag order &mdash; forbidden to notify their customers/clients/tenants about this warrantless spying. (Remember the &ldquo;good old days&rdquo; of the Patriot Act and it was only libraries that were under these orders if you checked out &ldquo;suspicious&rdquo; books?)
But for members of Congress, it&rsquo;s all good. If the feds scoop up data that happens to include the communications of congresscritters, they have to be notified.
So much for quaint old American values like &ldquo;equality under the law.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The &ldquo;Everything World War III&rdquo; Bills
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile on Saturday, the House voted to spend $95 billion of money the government doesn&rsquo;t have to stir up more trouble around the globe.
There&rsquo;s $61 billion for Ukraine&hellip; $26 billion for Israel&hellip; $8 billion for Taiwan. All of it passed in separate bills by overwhelming margins with much bloviating and tortured historical analogies&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6sunZX540UVz5f59n2ipfR/ffa6522cc1fe3fb062fa58ef52dae9a2/MichaelTweet-4-22.png" alt="michael tracey" width="540px" />
Does someone want to inform the gentleman from Arkansas that France&rsquo;s aid to America during the Revolution &mdash; which was not out of sympathy for America but rather spite for England &mdash; ultimately helped bankrupt France and toppled the government in 1789?
Anyway, we won&rsquo;t dwell too much on the dollars and cents or the recipients today; colleague Sean Ring did that just fine in <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/the-price-of-empire">today&rsquo;s </a><a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/the-price-of-empire">Rude Awakening</a>.
It&rsquo;s the fourth bill &mdash; the godawful-named &ldquo;21st Century Peace Through Strength Act,&rdquo; also passed by an overwhelming margin &mdash; that has our attention&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For starters, the outright confiscation of U.S. Treasuries owned by the Russian Central Bank is nearly a done deal.
We&rsquo;ve warned about the folly of this step for many months now. It was already an extreme step to freeze $300 billion in Treasuries owned by Russia &mdash; an act that prompted other governments around the world to start shrinking their dollar reserves.
But as Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards has said, seizing those assets takes it to a whole new level. It is an effective default on the U.S. Treasury&rsquo;s obligations to pay its debts.
Most of the $300 billion in Treasuries is held in European banks; seizing those assets requires the cooperation of European authorities, and they&rsquo;re understandably reluctant to take such an extreme step.
But there&rsquo;s about $6 billion in Treasuries held in the United States&hellip; and this new bill gives the president the authority to confiscate them.
Long term, that&rsquo;s bad for Treasuries&hellip; and good for gold. As Jim told his Strategic Intelligence readers last month, &ldquo;Gold is the liquid, safe alternative and appeals to many investors in a world where Treasuries can be confiscated at will.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The &ldquo;21st Century Peace Through Strength Act&rdquo; also includes a revised version of the TikTok ban.
We won&rsquo;t dwell today on the reasons this is a terrible idea; we <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/finally#2">already did that</a> when the House debated and passed the original version last month. Suffice to say that under the revised legislation, TikTok&rsquo;s Chinese owners have up to a year instead of just six months to sell their U.S. operations.
The revised timetable is convenient for congresscritters. No longer will they have to confront angry constituents while campaigning this fall. It all gets pushed back after Election Day now. (By one count, fully half the U.S. population uses TikTok to exercise their First Amendment rights and a super-majority are of voting age.)
All in all, a grim weekend for peace and prosperity and freedom. The four bills will be bundled into a single bill for the Senate to rubber-stamp next.
Only 13 representatives out of 435 took the consistent principled position on all four votes &mdash; the position expressed in Jefferson&rsquo;s ideal of &ldquo;peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Gold on Sale
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Mr. Slammy&rdquo; &mdash; aka the hidden hand that takes down the price of precious metals &mdash; has been busy ever since the markets opened last night to start a new week.
It wasn&rsquo;t a waterfall drop &mdash; just a steady stream downward. At last check, gold was down nearly 2.5% or $58 to $2,333. Silver is taking it much worse, down over 5% or $1.50 to $27.14.
There&rsquo;s no news catalyst for this price action; the mainstream is trying to chalk it up to the fact that Israel didn&rsquo;t conduct any bigger follow-up bombing of Iran this weekend, but that was already evident on Friday.
Sometimes, there just isn&rsquo;t an explanation. Volatility happens. In this present instance, gold is &ldquo;waking up after a long snooze and needs to get the crust out of its eyes,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner.
Our old friend Chuck Butler, still holding forth at his Daily Pfennig e-letter, is positively Zen: &ldquo;The short paper traders are having a field day today, so just ignore this trading and go out and mow the lawn, or play golf or do something that doesn't involve watching the short paper trades and their engineered takedown again.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> There was an explanation for the previous big slam on Friday, April 12, by the way. 
In an announcement overlooked by both mainstream and alternative media, CME Group &mdash; the giant exchange overseeing futures and options trading in commodities &mdash; said that day it planned to jack up margin requirements for traders. Raising margin requirements forces traders to fork over more cash in case their trades go against them.
That announcement assured gold would not end the week over $2,400. [Credit where it&rsquo;s due: The Financial Sense podcast was all over the story, if no one else was.]
Perhaps the takeaway is this: For all the drama of the last 10 days or so, gold is still holding the line on $2,300 &mdash; a level it had never seen until this month!
That&rsquo;s resilience &mdash; and a sign that Greg Guenthner&rsquo;s target before year-end of $2,600 remains in play.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for stocks, the major averages are all in the green &mdash; but not dramatically, and not enough for the S&amp;P 500 to reclaim the round-number level of 5,000.
Crude is up modestly to $83.35. In its latest post-halving iteration, Bitcoin has pushed past $66,000.
Several of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; names report their quarterly numbers later this week including Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta.
The big economic numbers don&rsquo;t come until later this week &mdash; the Commerce Department&rsquo;s first guess at first-quarter GDP on Thursday, and the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred measure of inflation on Friday.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" /> Mailbag: An Infrastructure Lament
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The United States is entering a period where we will be seriously short on lots of critical infrastructure,&rdquo; a reader writes after our latest update on the shortage of electrical transformers.
&ldquo;If you and I can see this, why can&rsquo;t our leadership see it? It would appear that they are clueless.
&ldquo;Time to call it what it is. Incompetence at the highest level. Time for responsibility to be demanded and repercussions to be felt for being irresponsible to your job and what the person was supposed to be in charge of.
&ldquo;Heaven help us all, we will need it shortly.&rdquo;
Dave responds: With infrastructure, as with much else these days, appealing for divine intervention seems like a far better risk-reward proposition than thinking we can vote our way out of this&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

awn-hero-img-03-05-24 Politics and voting concept. Presidential election 2024 text on white paper over the American flag background

shutterstock 2283813593

Wait, not everyone feels invested in The Most Important Presidential Election In History™?

5 BULLETS: Abolish the Presidency, Says Altucher

Abolish the Presidency, Says Altucher

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />&ldquo;Most Consequential Halving [in] History&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> MicroStrategy&rsquo;s founder and former CEO Michael Saylor was a relative unknown until Aug. 11, 2020&hellip; when Bitcoin was priced around $11,400. 
On that date &mdash; with literal and figurative fires burning throughout the pandemic hellscape that was the U.S. &mdash; Saylor announced his publicly traded company MicroStrategy (MSTR) had invested $250 million in Bitcoin.
At the time, he called the flagship crypto a &ldquo;dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.&rdquo;
According to the website CoinMarketCap: &ldquo;Saylor&rsquo;s move was a first &mdash; the head of a mainstream public company calling Satoshi Nakamoto&rsquo;s cryptocurrency a good long-term investment, and putting his corporate treasury where his mouth was.&rdquo;
A little over a month later, in September 2020, Saylor added another $175 million worth of Bitcoin to MSTR&rsquo;s balance sheet, bringing the firm&rsquo;s total to 38,250 Bitcoins.
The following year, MicroStrategy would continue to double-down on Bitcoin&hellip;
&ldquo;As of Feb. 24, 2021, the company holds an aggregate of approximately 90,531 Bitcoins,&rdquo; said a MicroStrategy press release, &ldquo;which were acquired at an aggregate purchase price of approximately $2.171 billion and an average purchase price of approximately $23,985 per Bitcoin.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;[MicroStrategy] remains focused on our two corporate strategies of growing our enterprise analytics software business,&rdquo; Saylor said in 2021, &ldquo;and acquiring and holding Bitcoin.&rdquo; 
We&rsquo;re certain Saylor got roasted for his pioneering position on Bitcoin &mdash; especially during the bearish &ldquo;crypto winter&rdquo; of 2022 &mdash; but nobody trolled him harder than Saylor himself&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4VsKZWWXuThTZ1Fu0Y6mdP/cf03942b11816a346d6045845ff80782/McDonalds.png" alt="McDonalds" width="540px" /> Courtesy: X
Which brings us to this morning, as CNBC notes: &ldquo;[Saylor&rsquo;s] company has used its balance sheet and tapped the capital markets to acquire more than 214,000 Bitcoins since announcing its strategy to enter the crypto market in mid-2020.
&ldquo;Those assets, equal to about 1% of the total number of Bitcoins minted to date, are now worth about $13.6 billion, accounting for the bulk of MicroStrategy&rsquo;s $21.3 billion market cap.&rdquo; [Emphasis ours]
&ldquo;In a market where consumers can buy Bitcoin directly on various exchanges or choose a host of new ETFs,&rdquo; CNBC adds, &ldquo;Saylor has said the ongoing advantage of MicroStrategy is that it&rsquo;s a leveraged Bitcoin play without the management fee.&rdquo; (An intriguing premise, in my opinion; MSTR shares are up about 90% YTD.)
And speaking of the mainstream finally catching onto <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/3-125">the biggest story in crypto&hellip;</a>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Much of the rally in Bitcoin and related investments has to do with [the] upcoming halving this week,&rdquo; CNBC says.
This pre-programmed cut in supply &mdash; which happens every four years &mdash; has led to higher Bitcoin prices 100% of the time. And the halving is going down sometime today or tomorrow&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2kSkXs3Di8jSeCsvJXHXQs/0d2d89b5679938192f5ca4980d810efa/Half-ball.png" alt="when will it half?" width="540px" />
It is an event that has been responsible for creating 88,000 millionaires in the last 15 years. That&rsquo;s more than Microsoft and Google combined!
And unlike most events in the markets like an IPO or a corporate buyout, this event is guaranteed to happen.
At a time when supply of new Bitcoin coming onto the market will be cut in half, demand for Bitcoin is exploding. Plus, the floodgates are open to new sources of money.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;It will be the single most consequential halving in the history of Bitcoin,&rdquo; says Michael Saylor.
So far, for instance, most demand for the new Bitcoin ETFs has come from retail investors. But the big money will come from endowments, pension funds, mutual funds, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds and other wealth management businesses.
And while it&rsquo;s true that Bitcoin went up 7x, 27x and even 92x during past halvings, many smaller &ldquo;alt coins&rdquo; went up much higher.
Which is why Paradigm&rsquo;s crypto evangelist James Altucher suggests Bitcoin isn&rsquo;t the best way to invest in crypto. He believes the biggest gains will happen in a set of much smaller coins that most people have never heard of, sending some exploding 100x, 200x and even 300x in rare cases.
It&rsquo;s happened in each of the previous three times, and James expects the same thing to happen during the fourth halving.
[If you missed out on the life-changing gains from past Bitcoin halvings &mdash; as most people did &mdash; you now have another opportunity. But with the halving event upon us, the window is closing soon. In fact, you&rsquo;ll want to view <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2314436">James Altucher&rsquo;s six-coin prediction</a> before MIDNIGHT.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Markets Today: Gold, Oil and Netflix
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The market reaction to Israel&rsquo;s counterstrike against Iran was&hellip; short-lived.
Gold popped over $2,400 and oil jumped by $3 a barrel in global trading last night as soon as it was apparent that some sort of attack was underway.
But once it was evident the counterstrike was of a limited, send-a-message nature&hellip; the commodity complex pulled back. Checking our screens this morning, the bid on gold is $2,389 while silver trades for $28.49. Crude fetches $83.16 &mdash; nowhere near the $85-plus levels where it&rsquo;s traded most of April.
As for the major stock averages, it&rsquo;s a mixed bag &mdash; the Dow in the green, the Nasdaq 1% in the red. The S&amp;P 500 is down a third of a percent and on track to end the week below 5,000.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The action in Netflix this morning is another reminder of Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner&rsquo;s rule of thumb: It&rsquo;s not the news that matters, it&rsquo;s how the market reacts.
When NFLX reported its quarterly numbers yesterday, the initial spin in the financial media was Oh look, Netflix&rsquo;s crackdown on password sharing is working like a charm &mdash; the subscriber count is up at its fastest clip since the COVID lockdowns!
Then everyone took a closer look at NFLX&rsquo;s earnings release &mdash; and saw the fine print that starting next year, the company will stop reporting its subscriber count.
Heh, for the last decade or so, Wall Street attached far more importance to Netflix&rsquo;s subscriber count than it did to boring, old-fashioned numbers like sales and profits. That&rsquo;s how Netflix became one of Wall Street&rsquo;s darlings in the latter half of the 2010s &mdash; remember the frenzy over the &ldquo;FANG&rdquo; stocks?
Welp, that&rsquo;s all over now; NFLX shares are down nearly 7% on the day. About a third of its year-to-date gains, vaporized in a matter of hours. Guess sales and profits still matter after all&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Fed&rsquo;s Rocket Surgeons
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Federal Reserve posts largest operating loss on record,&rdquo; says a headline at Moneywise.
&ldquo;You read that right,&rdquo; Jim Rickards comments. &ldquo;The Federal Reserve lost over $114 billion in 2023.&rdquo;
How can the Fed lose money? Don&rsquo;t they print the stuff?
&ldquo;From your perspective, the money the Fed prints is an asset; you can put it in the bank or invest in anything you want,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;But from the Fed&rsquo;s perspective, money is a liability, actually a form of debt. It appears on the liabilities side of the Fed&rsquo;s balance sheet.
&ldquo;What about assets? When the Fed prints money, they do so by buying Treasury notes or mortgages from big banks. The money comes out of thin air, but the Treasuries and mortgages are delivered to the Fed and go on the balance sheet as assets.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s where the trouble begins&hellip;
&ldquo;A few years ago, the Fed loaded up on notes with interest rates around 2.0%,&rdquo; Jim observes. &ldquo;Many of those notes have five- or 10-year maturities and they&rsquo;re still on the balance sheet.
&ldquo;Meanwhile, the Fed pays banks interest on excess reserves deposited by the banks with the Fed. That&rsquo;s an overnight rate closer to 5.0% these days.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t need a Ph.D. in economics to see that if you earn 2.0% on your assets and pay 5.0% on your liabilities, you lose money,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s happening at the Fed.
&ldquo;Is the Fed going broke? Actually, yes,&rdquo; Jim confirms. &ldquo;This does not happen in isolation&hellip;
&ldquo;When the Fed makes money, they hand over the profits to the Treasury in net of operating costs. But when the Fed loses money, the Treasury has to subsidize the Fed which comes out of taxpayer funds.
&ldquo;Not only is the Fed losing money with negative cash flow,&rdquo; notes Jim, &ldquo;but its capital is also evaporating. If you marked the Fed&rsquo;s balance sheet to market (something the Fed does not do), it would show negative net worth from time to time.&rdquo;
Jim concludes: &ldquo;I once had a private dinner with a Fed governor. She told me that central banks don&rsquo;t need capital&hellip; I guess we&rsquo;re about to find out if that&rsquo;s true or not.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />A Bay Area Small Business: &ldquo;Forget It&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A Bay Area burger joint &mdash; that&rsquo;s been operating for almost 40 years &mdash; closed for good last week after legal and landlord hassles were bad for business. 
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to miss the community and our great customers,&rdquo; says George Koliavas who co-owned Great American Hamburger &amp; Pie Co. with his wife, Helen.
Helen&rsquo;s family opened the restaurant &mdash; known for its garlic fries and 30-plus milkshake flavors &mdash; back in 1986. George and Helen took over in 2010. They barely scraped through the pandemic, facing the challenges of &ldquo;rising costs [and] finding staff,&rdquo; SFGate notes.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/G7zjFwJzwGtUfOBK8usdk/b85a29273b96c18c094881dc9305ff0d/GreatAmericanHamburger.png" alt="Great American Hamburger" width="540px" /> Courtesy: X
But when a wheelchair-bound customer visited the establishment twice last year and couldn&rsquo;t navigate the threshold, he filed a lawsuit in January 2024, citing the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA).
&ldquo;According to George, his landlord discussed adding a wheelchair ramp by the entrance but ultimately didn&rsquo;t due to high costs,&rdquo; says SFGate. &ldquo;The lawsuit has created additional stress for the Koliavas family.&rdquo;
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s frustrating and you get to a point where you say, &lsquo;You know what, forget it,&rsquo;&rdquo; says Mr. Koliavas. &ldquo;It seems like the chain reaction is that the landlord doesn&rsquo;t want to do anything, and it comes down on the small businesses.&rdquo;
Very sad. (And I&rsquo;m starving.)
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Gold Heist Update
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The real story regarding the Toronto airport gold heist is the court case of Brink's versus Air Canada,&rdquo; a reader writes after we recounted yesterday the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/blackouts-powered-by-ai#4">2023 theft</a> of 6,500 gold bars.
&ldquo;Obviously, one of the parties will have to pay the Swiss refinery and bank for the loss,&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;No matter which party is liable for &lsquo;payment,&rsquo; will the reimbursement be the replacement value of the gold (currently US$2,394/ounce) or a cash payment based on the official U.S. book value of gold at U.S. $42.22/ounce?
&ldquo;I believe that Air Canada is seeking a settlement based on the official U.S. book price and not the replacement price.
&ldquo;This case may set a precedent for all such future cases. If the courts accept the official U.S. book gold valuation, then all gold shipments will cease regardless of insurance coverage.&rdquo;
Emily: Intriguing&hellip; As near as we can tell, Air Canada&rsquo;s standing behind the Montreal Convention which would cap the airline&rsquo;s liability at just US$175,000.
Air Canada alleges that &ldquo;Brink&rsquo;s shipped the gold and cash from Zurich to Toronto without declaring its value, failing to add any insurance and declining to pay extra for added security,&rdquo; The Guardian notes.
Brink&rsquo;s, of course, is seeking the replacement value of the gold shipment. But if Air Canada&rsquo;s allegations are true, Brink&rsquo;s might be quoting another airline&rsquo;s slogan&hellip;
Wanna get away? 
Take care, and enjoy your weekend!
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1077695468

MicroStrategy’s founder and chairman Michael Saylor was a relative unknown until Aug. 11, 2020… when his company bet big on Bitcoin. 

5 BULLETS: CEO Gets Last Laugh

CEO Gets Last Laugh

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Blackouts&hellip; Powered by AI?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It took exactly three months for a burning issue to make it from our humble daily dispatches to the front page of the Financial Times&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/D5HG4N96XM5HNCbYSejnR/3952c6b6d35eaad171afa3b574ca3e41/FT2.png" alt="Financial Times" width="450px" />
Back in January, the power elite were gathered at the World Economic Forum&rsquo;s annual shindig in Davos, Switzerland &mdash; oohing and aahing about the possibilities of artificial intelligence.
What they weren&rsquo;t talking about was where all the electricity was going to come from to power ever-more robust forms of AI.
But Paradigm&rsquo;s tech-investing authority Ray Blanco was: &ldquo;The rapid growth in internet traffic and cloud computing has led to skyrocketing energy demands for data centers around the world,&rdquo; he said in these 5 Bullets on Jan. 18.
In years past, the biggest demand came from video. No more: Now it&rsquo;s AI.
&ldquo;This results in a massive challenge for data center operators,&rdquo; said Ray, &ldquo;struggling to support relentless growth in traffic and power consumption.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In the three months since Ray said that, a typical data center&rsquo;s computing power needed to double just to keep pace with the demands of AI.
It will double again three months from now. And so on&hellip;
About three weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal&rsquo;s editorial board sat up and took notice. &ldquo;Projections for U.S. electricity demand growth over the next five years have doubled from a year ago,&rdquo; the editors wrote.
&ldquo;Electricity demand to power data centers is projected to increase by 13&ndash;15% compounded annually through 2030. Yet a shortage of power is already delaying new data centers by two&ndash;six years, according to commercial-real estate firm CBRE Group. It is also driving Big Tech companies into the energy business. Amazon this month struck a $650 million deal to buy a data center in Pennsylvania powered by an onsite 2.5 gigawatt nuclear plant.&rdquo;
Enlightening, no? But that was on the editorial pages. If you read only the news pages, you might have seen the item about Amazon&rsquo;s nuke plant, but you wouldn&rsquo;t have necessarily put two and two together.
Finally, the Journal&rsquo;s salmon-colored British competition stepped up to the plate today &mdash; three months after we tipped you off.
&ldquo;Electricity supply is becoming the latest chokepoint to threaten the growth of artificial intelligence, according to leading tech industry chiefs, as power-hungry data centers add to the strain on grids around the world.
&ldquo;Billionaire Elon Musk said this month that while the development of AI had been &lsquo;chip constrained&rsquo; last year, the latest bottleneck to the cutting-edge technology was &lsquo;electricity supply.&rsquo; Those comments followed a warning by Amazon chief Andy Jassy this year that there was &lsquo;not enough energy right now&rsquo; to run new generative AI services.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The situation would be bad enough even if the electric grid weren&rsquo;t already being pushed to its limits. But as we&rsquo;ve chronicled regularly for two years now, it is.
While the mainstream has downplayed the fact, the capacity of the grid is no greater now than it was in 2011.
And with data centers demanding ever more juice&hellip; at the same time that Americans are being pushed to adopt electric vehicles&hellip; at the same time that coal and nuclear plants are being shut down and new solar and wind capacity isn&rsquo;t nearly enough to make up the difference&hellip;
&hellip; well, something&rsquo;s gotta give.
We&rsquo;ve previously addressed the possibility that Americans might soon be subject to South African-style &ldquo;load shedding&rdquo; &mdash; rolling blackouts made necessary to prevent the grid from collapsing altogether.
What we haven&rsquo;t addressed is the investing possibilities. Because there are companies out there wrestling with this problem, aiming for solutions to keep the grid up 24/7 while still feeding AI&rsquo;s enormous and growing appetite.
The mainstream isn&rsquo;t talking about that, either&hellip; but rest assured the Paradigm editors are performing their due diligence right now in search of the best opportunities. Watch this space in the weeks and months ahead.
(And in the meantime, consider getting a generator as your editor did in 2022.)
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Impact of Bitcoin Halving, in One Chart
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With Bitcoin&rsquo;s &ldquo;halving&rdquo; coming tomorrow or Saturday, here&rsquo;s a chart that says what we said yesterday &mdash; just in a more strikingly visual way.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/70PjGV97IGFRvNE3YzIxCl/cd565b4299d02cc3ad7b19202aadf167/GaborTweet.png" alt="Gabor Tweet" width="540px" />
The chart comes to us from the VanEck fund family. It depicts Bitcoin&rsquo;s price action during the previous three halvings &mdash; an every-four-years event when the proceeds from Bitcoin mining are cut in half &mdash; as well as an average of the three.
As you can see, the gains to be had in the 60 days surrounding a halving are fairly meager. But if you wait six months after the halving, your patience is rewarded handsomely.
Assuming the average performance plays out this time &mdash; unlikely, but we&rsquo;re just doing a thought experiment &mdash; we&rsquo;d be looking at $265,000 Bitcoin. (It&rsquo;s going for a little under $64,000 this morning.)
Even a gain half that size would be mighty nice for only six months.
But as our crypto evangelist James Altucher has been saying for days now, Bitcoin halvings tend to drive far more explosive gains in tiny alt-coins &mdash; with the potential to 100x your money or more.
James has six such coins in mind right now. You&rsquo;ll want to be in position before the halving &mdash; which, again, takes place sometime between midday tomorrow and midday Saturday.
&ldquo;If you wait until after the halving,&rdquo; James says, &ldquo;these coins could be trading much, much higher &mdash; and you&rsquo;ll have missed this opportunity forever.&rdquo;
You don&rsquo;t want to be kicking yourself after the fact. A short time ago, James recorded an urgent update about this situation on his phone. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2313901">Best give it a look right away</a>.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for more conventional asset classes, the stock market is trying to stage a modest recovery after the S&amp;P 500 notched four straight days of losses.
The S&amp;P is up a little less than half a percent as we wrote to 5,044. It wouldn&rsquo;t be surprising to see the index oscillate between 5,000&ndash;5,100 for a few days before moving decisively one way or the other.
Bond yields are moving higher again, but not as high as the case Tuesday. The yield on a 10-year Treasury is now 4.63%.
Precious metals today are the same story they&rsquo;ve been all week &mdash; gold within reach of $2,400 and silver over $28.
Crude continues to trade near its April lows at $82.51. As long as it holds over $80, it looks like a &ldquo;buy the dip&rdquo; opportunity.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Hey, It Worked Two Years Ago&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Don&rsquo;t look now, but the White House might be thinking once again about draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep gasoline prices down in an election year.
<blockquote>➢ In other news, that ultimate swamp creature John Podesta took over last month from John Kerry as the Biden administration&rsquo;s &ldquo;climate czar.&rdquo;</blockquote>
If the White House were flat ruling it out, Podesta could have said so.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As a reminder, the Biden administration drained the SPR &mdash; an oil stash maintained by the federal government in the salt caverns of Texas and Louisiana &mdash; at an unprecedented rate in 2022. 
Presidents of both parties have used the SPR to mess with fuel prices over the decades, but Biden took it to a whole other level&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1Mg5mQxo8HnB5wSLmDOYuo/afb4c01055ba0133588f12d82b5a47b6/5Bullets_BidenBleed_041824.png" alt="the Biden Bleed" width="540px" />
And while the disruption to energy markets from Russia&rsquo;s invasion of Ukraine gave him cover, it looked like an attempt to keep a lid on gasoline prices ahead of the midterm elections.
But as you can see, a similar pace of drawdown this year would nearly deplete the SPR &mdash; which is hypothetically there for dire emergencies like a war that shuts down the Persian Gulf for months on end.
That said, tapping the SPR isn&rsquo;t the only possibility this year. Maybe Biden would try to channel his inner Richard Nixon and slap price controls on gasoline?
<a id="4"></a>
Of course, price controls inevitably lead to shortages and gas lines &mdash; as they did in the &rsquo;70s &mdash; but Biden could blame the shortages on &ldquo;hoarders.&rdquo;
Not that we want to give him any ideas. We&rsquo;re just trying to tease out some possibilities and stay ahead of the curve&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Cops Crack Gold Caper
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It took a while, but cops in Canada think they&rsquo;ve solved the gold heist of the century.
A year ago, thieves made off with 6,500 gold bars worth $14.6 million. The bars had arrived at Pearson Airport in Toronto on an Air Canada flight from Zurich, Switzerland. One of the thieves showed a phony airway bill &mdash; and that was good enough to take possession of the bars weighing about 880 pounds, which they hauled away in a box truck.
By one reckoning, that made for the sixth-biggest gold heist in history.
The first clue emerged last September when cops in Philadelphia pulled over a guy from Ontario for a traffic violation. Inside the car they found a stash of 65 firearms that investigators say were destined for Canada.
The driver is now suspected of being the getaway driver in the theft. Meanwhile, Peel Regional Police in Ontario announced this week they&rsquo;ve picked up five more suspects &mdash; two of them Air Canada employees &mdash; while three more are still at large.
As for the gold, cops say so far they&rsquo;ve recovered just over $65,000 worth of &ldquo;pure gold&rdquo; that had been melted down and refashioned into &ldquo;crudely made&rdquo; bracelets. Also seized were smelting pots, casts, molds and $313,000 in Canadian bank notes that investigators say were the proceeds of gold sales.
 <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4uSnaDxLwEddkxNacMb5ar/4c5acd20229b6d2a50a5716aef3d4484/guns_bracelets_banknotes.png" alt="guns, bracelets, banknotes" width="540px" />  The bracelets, the cash, the guns [Peel Regional Police photos]
Meanwhile, Brink&rsquo;s is suing Air Canada for fouling up the transfer of the gold. "No security protocols or features were in place to monitor, restrict or otherwise regulate the unidentified individual's access to the facilities," according to Brink&rsquo;s &mdash; a claim Air Canada strenuously denies.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Bitcoin ETFs, Uncle Sam&rsquo;s Debt, a Satisfied Reader
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;When Bitcoin halves, what effect will it have on the Bitcoin ETFs?&rdquo; says a reader&rsquo;s short note.
The answer is probably nothing different than happens with Bitcoin itself. The new &ldquo;spot&rdquo; ETFs, after all, are designed to track the price action of Bitcoin. Presumably they&rsquo;ll do the job better than the older Bitcoin ETFs that were linked to Bitcoin futures and not the crypto itself.
That said, the spot Bitcoin ETFs are still quite new and there are close to a dozen of them. It&rsquo;s not unreasonable to expect one of them might hiccup in the next few months for reasons we can&rsquo;t begin to anticipate now&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Dave, we keep hearing about inflation restraining an interest rate drop &mdash; but not much about the difficulties the guv'ment is having in selling its debt,&rdquo; says our next inquiry.
&ldquo;If that is, in fact, correct, Econ 102, or would it be 201, tells us knuckle-crawlers that they can't drop rates and expect to get more buyers of increasingly junky debt. What am I missing?&rdquo;
Dave responds: Nothing.
That said, a sudden debt apocalypse &mdash; in which a Treasury auction goes &ldquo;no bid&rdquo; &mdash; isn&rsquo;t necessarily in the cards.
&ldquo;There is no risk of a failed auction of new bonds,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers in February. &ldquo;If foreign investors didn&rsquo;t want them, it would be a simple matter to get U.S. banks to pick up the slack.&rdquo;
The Treasury relies on about two dozen &ldquo;primary dealers&rdquo; &mdash; big financial institutions that underwrite Treasury auctions in exchange for a host of privileges from the government and the Federal Reserve. They are obligated to bid if no one else steps up &mdash; but they are not obligated to bid at a certain rate.
Thus, says Jim, &ldquo;The risks in Treasuries are not default or rollover. The real risks are higher interest rates or a collapse in the exchange value of the dollar.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thank you for offering such a dynamic service,&rdquo; says our final correspondent.
&ldquo;While we may not agree on every point discussed or raised, the advice, information, insights and intel that you've been offering since I joined Paradigm Press in 2022 has been invaluable.
&ldquo;In fact, so much so that I am now better informed across a whole array of disciplines (which of course is essential for investment strategy and decision-making purposes).&rdquo;
Dave: Thanks for the praise &mdash; and for the pointed reminder about why we do what we do.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets
P.S. Emily has the issue tomorrow, so allow me to be the first to wish you a Happy Patriots&rsquo; Day. It&rsquo;s the least I can do, having overlooked Jefferson&rsquo;s Birthday since it fell last Saturday.

shutterstock 1903381996

It took exactly three months for a burning issue to make it from our humble daily dispatches to the front page of the salmon-colored rag. 